


How To Make A Mosiac

by ICollectTheEverything



Category: Fallout 4
Genre: F/F, F/M, M/M, Multi, Other, Smut
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-17
Updated: 2018-06-09
Packaged: 2018-09-18 03:51:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 14
Words: 44,371
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9366788
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ICollectTheEverything/pseuds/ICollectTheEverything
Summary: The female sole survivor has many an adventure, with many being carnal in nature.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> WARNING!!!! Not all will be consensual. Not all will be canon. It will be descriptive. If you have a potential for triggering, I would advise against this. It is a work of fiction and I in no way condone these actions, nor do I own the characters. Not all chapters will contain smut, but it is a smut story. If I haven’t lost you by now, please enjoy!

Chapter 1 summary- starting strong with group sex, ffm, lesbian, sort of homosexual.

          The night was full of the hot and sweaty promise of passion fulfilled. The heat and humidity of the night mixing with the full tones of foxtrot boogie soaring through the balcony doors to Nora’s ears. She was already starting to sweat, so she lifted her whisky on the rocks to the nape of her neck, leaning her head back and making a contented moan. Her moan deepened as Nate came behind her, linking his arms around her midsection. She took a drink and leaned into his embrace.

          She purred happily as her freehand reached back to take his half stiff member in her hands. She squeezed appreciatively through the light khaki of his pants as he began to tongue the condensation that had remained on her neck. His tongue rolling over her light gold chain causing it to pull up from her red sequin dress. She watched through hooded eyes at the mixing of bodies happening near the pool down below. He leaned more into her causing her free hand came around to rub over his hand, staying near his wedding ring, enjoying the clink as hers met with his. He set his head on her shoulder and watched the pile of entwining, writhing flesh that in the morning would be influential judges, politicians, company Ceo’s and other important people.

          She couldn’t help the self satisfied grin she would get every time one of the other ladies, and honestly some of the men would shoot her a look of jealousy for having brought her dashing husband. He hadn’t been back from active service long and still had the hard body of a man wearing power armour more often than not. He returned their looks with interest, a few with promises, but only hers with hunger. Only hers with love.

          She knew how lucky she was, having such a great man. Sexy, disciplined, thoughtful, and most importantly, eagerly accepting of Nora’s swinging lifestyle. He loved the party’s and the attention as much as she did. And he too saw the beauty of the human form. He wasn’t hung up on conventions and what was and wasn’t “manly”.

         A woman in a green dress came out with a cigarette, lighting it as she walked over to them. The flames making her auburn hair red in the cloying darkness. She was the wife of some important figure, one in the pile below them judging by the sneer she sent that way. She wasn’t a beautiful woman, despite her best efforts with makeup and a jarring hairstyle. Nora was pretty sure it was called the megaton, having glanced at an issue of le coiffre earlier that day. She blushed a bit when she realized the woman was staring, perhaps guessing her unflattering thoughts on the style. The woman smiled and in that moment Nora realized she was a handsome woman in her own way.

          “Shall I show you why I went with this style?” she purred in an almost sexy way. She crossed the few steps between them, and got on her knees, not breaking get eye contact with Nora as she lowered herself. Nora smiled and moved around to the back of Nate running her nails over his shirtless chest and down his back. The woman reached forward and undid Nate’s fly slowly and reaching in with both hands to pull out his full length. The whole time, the woman hadn’t broken eye contact with Nora. She licked her lips, smiled and did her best to pull all of Nate into her mouth. She finally broke eye contact as she realized she still had quite a bit to go, and her eyes widened in happy surprise. Nate chuckled as she got a determined look and tried to push in more, but couldn’t as she had a sensitive gag reflex. Nate ran his fingers into her hair under the giant mass, and started to try to pull her head closer while letting out a low growl. Nora knew what that meant. The woman wasn’t doing a very good job. As her body heaved once more, she appeared to want to give up.  
         

          Feeling sympathy for poor Nate, she also got on her knees, and gently started to work on Nate’s balls , first with her hands, then her mouth as the other woman understood she would take over. She seemed disappointed from her failure with Nate, but murmured happily enough when Nora guided her hands to her own impressive bosom. She took little time in getting her hands into the neck of the dress and made a bit of a squeal when she realized Nora wasn’t wearing a bra.

          Nora shifted again so she could take full control of Nate’s throbbing member guiding it with practiced ease into her throat. She fought the small part of her body that still objected to the intrusion, and swallowed with him as far as she could manage. She was so consumed with the guttural sounds coming from her husband, she didn’t hear her zipper going down in the back. She had turned her attention to the head of Nate’s cock, swirling it with the top and bottom of her tongue, like he was a taste she was trying to memorize, when she gasped as the woman roughly pulled her dress down as far as her kneeling would allow. The woman then heaved a contrite sigh and began kissing and licking at the red marks her carelessness has left on Nora’s ivory skin.

          She suckled on Nora’s neck, reaching with her right hand to feel the weight of each of her breasts. She seemed to marvel at how much more than a handful she was finding. Her left snaked down over Nora’s stomach, still a little soft from the birth of her son, to the manicured short curls of her snatch. Her fingers enjoying the feel of the hair, and how Nora would respond so honestly to what her body craved. She spread her legs and leaned forward so she could still give Nate his pleasure, but no longer willing to wait for her own. She could feel the hot breath of the woman on her cheek as she finally stopped dancing around with her fingers and latched on to her clit.

          “You are so beautiful.” The woman whispered as she stroked Nora’s flesh. The huskiness of her voice sending a shiver through her. Nora glanced up, she knew receiving pleasure was affecting her ability to pass it on, but Nate seemed too engrossed in the show to mind.

          “It’s not fair!” She whispered as she pinched too hard causing Nora to buck up her hips. It hurt, but it was such a good hurt, she only winked at Nate to let him know it was alright. He frowned then tilted his head back to enjoy Nora’s renewed concentration. The woman slid fingers in Nora’s slippery entrance and gripped her breast with the nipple pinched between her fingers. She began to murmur as she explored Nora’s snatch, feeling the tightness on her fingers, and searching for her most sensitive places. As her hands became more insistent, her murmurs grew loud enough to make out a word here and there. They seemed mostly to revolve around Nora’s chest.

          Nora smiled around Nate’s cock feeling to telltale twitches in his legs announcing he was close. Wanting her own release, she rocked harder against the woman’s hands spurring her to become nearly frantic in her ministrations. It was less than a minute before she felt her body winding tight. So sweetly tight, but wanting to be released. It was a sweet torture that ended too soon, as she moaned so loud, she was sure Nate could feel it in his balls. She threw her head back and let the night fill with the sweet sounds of her climax, not caring she was squirting and making a mess on the three of them. Nate watched the orgasm tear through her body, and couldn’t hold back anymore spilling his seed down Nora’s chest.

          The woman sat back on her heels, grinning as she watched Nora’s body finally finish with her release. Once Nora could focus her eyes, she turned them to the woman, her body still trembling, she heard the woman hitch her breath. Nora reached out catching through back of the woman’s head and drawing her in for a possessive kiss. Without breaking it, she reached behind the woman and undid her dress, being much more gentle while she pulled it over.

          The woman’s body was boyish in nature, with small but pert breasts in a royal purple bra with a matching set of underwear. Nora loved it, she pulled her right cup to the side and took her bud of a nipple into her mouth, giving it much the same treatment Nate had received. The woman hissed her breath over her teeth and reached out with two fingers to scoop some of Nate’s cum into her mouth. Seeing this Nate smiled wickedly and knelt down to mirror Nora.

           She loved sharing people with her husband. Loved to watch him fuck other women, as well as men. With that in mind, she layed the woman down on the cool concrete and pulled off her panties, enjoying her perfume. She grinned wickedly at Nate and bent down over the woman’s center, breathing deeply of her scent and looking like a starving woman who has sat down to a feast. When she tucked in the woman moaned so loud it actually interrupted the revelry down below. A few who looked called out raucous encouragement although one man appeared upset.

           Nora didn’t see as he left the pile that was now almost a dozen strong and made his way into the house, busy up to her ears and focused on way the woman’s face would twitch, and how she could make her legs shake. The woman was responsive and clearly unused to this kind of ministration, showing in the way she reached down and curled her fingers into Nora’s long dirty blond hair and pulling it free from her simple updo. Nora smiled revelling in the way her locks grazed midway down her ass, spilling around them creating nearly a curtain shielding them from the remaining watchers done below.

          The watchers quickly grew bored trying to see and returned to there earlier activities. Nate had been watching himself, loving the way Nora was able to keep such dominance and control over other women. As his cock twitched back letting him know he was soon going to be ready again, he heard a noise. He didn’t pay it too much attention at first. This was a party, there were a lot of people around, he reasoned. He thought again about the scene in front of him, wondering if he would be able to hold himself back from the perfect curve of his wife’s ass, and the beckoning wet flush of her honey hole to do what he could tell she wanted. Which was to fuck this clearly repressed woman silly. Then the hair rose on the back of his neck. Years of military training kicked in and he took the scene in with fresh eyes.

          Apart from the women enjoying each other , and the majority of the partiers below, most of the people were walking around loud and drunk. Openly watching was encouraged, and the host had the entire property patrolled by his very discrete security force tell prevent any unwanted visitors. So why, could he see through the balcony doors, across the spacious empty bedroom, there was a shape sneaking down the hallway towards their room. There was a glint of metal in the figures hand. Nate immediately dropped to a crouch and quickly restrained his now nearly ruined erection away. Tender parts need to be protected and he couldn’t risk distractions.

          He slid through the shadows of the large balcony, past absurdly large and foreign plants. The figure had made it to the doorway at this point. He looked around the room, but in the dim light couldn’t make out Nate and continued forward. It was then that Nate could see the object was a golf club. But smaller somehow. Nate’s mouth went dry as he realized it was a mini golf club. The difference was the kiddie clubs were pure metal, instead of hollow, and would continue its effects well after the first hit. The man crept closer to the women, still blissfully unaware, and near something great by the sound of it. Nate advanced forward still in a crouch taking in his opponents bulky frame. Bulky but soft, Nate thought. Easily overcome although it would be a bit of a struggle as the man had to weigh at least one hundred pounds more.

          “C’mon baby! Cum for Me! “ Nora commanded the woman so forcefully, despite it all Nate had to smile. She was just like a drill sergeant, and made every one just as eager to do as she asked. The man paused and Nate finally was able to see his face.

         “Shit!” Nate exclaimed, thankful for the masking sound of the woman complying with Nora’s orders. The man was the ambassador from Canada and that made the woman screaming as Nora kept going making a second orgasm come crashing down on the heels of her barely finished prior, his wife. Inspiration struck Nate and he knew how to handle this without having an international issue.  
He stood behind the man, wrapping his arm under his torso to this throat with a strong, but gentle grip. His other hand went to the man’s cock and stroked it expertly. The man jumped, but survival instincts of having a muscular man grab you by the throat kept him still. Nate breathed hot into the older man’s ear while he continued with his teasing massage .

          “If you go to her and enter her now, you’ll be your wife’s god” Nate crooned into his ear. Nora said his voice was like lava made silk when he was angry , and by God he was now. He kept pumping the man’s shaft working it with little difficulty to full stiffness. As mad as the man might have been coming up, it was impossible to watch Nora and not be effected.

          Thankfully the man dropped the putter and turned to Nate. “Really?” He asked looking lost and very much drunk. If Nate hadn’t been fighting the urge to kill this man for even considering putting his wife in any amount to of danger, he would have felt pity.

            Nate flashed him a devilish grin and pointed to his own equipment. The possibility of Nora’s being in danger had rendered it momentarily out of commission. “You’re clearly the only one of us man enough to do it. “

            The praise and thought if being thought more of a man, than the vision that was Nate seemed to finally drain all the drunken rage out of the fool man. He let the ambassador go and he held his eye while extending his hand saying “Pumpkin, I need a drink.”  
Hearing that, Nora immediately disengaged herself from the woman and shook her head as if to clear to the desire. This allowed the woman’s husband to move in. As Nate and Nora left he looked over his shoulder and saw the man fucking his wife vigorously. She looked so far gone she could have been fucking anyone and not cared.

         “Was the man bad news? Or are you done for tonight?” Nora asked with a contented smile on her face, linking her fingers with his. He was so glad that they had set up the exit phrase before. He took her dress from her hands, having scooped it when she left. He held it out so she could put in her long legs still clad in her black stocking. He smiled at the holes that had appeared by the knees, no doubt from where she had been too greedy in her lust.

          “Both I guess. I handled his jealousy alright, but now I’m starting too feel beat. .” He pulled up her zipper and guided her to the front hallway where they had left the rest of their belongings in one of the rows of safes. He pulled his shirt over his head and heard Nora make a tiny sound. If he didn’t know own her so well he wouldn’t have known it was a sigh. “What’s wrong babe?”

          “I miss Shaun is all.” She stepped into her shoes and did her best to arrange her hair into something other than messy.

           “Do you regret coming? “ Nate worried. Nora had just gotten the okay from the doctor to enjoy these events again. Had it been to much too soon? It had been Nora’s idea, in fact her insistence they go. A very small and selfish part of him hoped she wasn’t done with these parties. He really enjoyed the variety, not to mention watching Nora do her own thing.

           “Oh my god, no not at all. This was great, I’m super glad we came.” Nora’s smile turned naughty. “Cause I mean, well, we did. Like, a lot. “ She snickered and kissed Nate’s lips with a tenderness that he found hard to believe came from the same woman who had ripped out orgasms from people like they were unwanted weeds in Eden.

          “It just kind of sucks we don’t have time to go your many more of these. Not with Halloween less than two weeks away.” They exited the house and got into one of the limos provided by Nora’s boss.

          “Home James.” Nate called out to the driver as he snuggled into the soft leather pulling Nora into his warmth. Nora smiled and closed her eyes sleepily inhaling his scent, leather, diesel, and his musky Cologne. She smiled contentedly memorizing the moment, and how safe she felt in Nate’s arms.

            “Aye sir.” The driver responded. His eyes rested on the couple, and he smiled as they were so obviously in love. He was surprised they had taken the time to learn his name, and did his best to make it a smooth ride.

 

 

So yeah. That was the first chapter. Please let me know what you think. I would love to make this a long story, but don’t want to be putting out unwanted material.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nora emerges from the vault. No smut in this one. Sorry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know this scene has been done to death, but it is important for my Nora’s story.

          Trapped! Nora’s eyes snapped open. “Let me out!” She shrieked. She lifted her half frozen limbs in panic, quickly feeling out her enclosure, barely bigger than her. Her panicked breaths quickly fogging the glass in front the of her.

         “I have to get out! You need to let me out!” She gasped out between hyperventilating breaths. Her claustrophobia making the sides of the pod appear to lean in menacingly. ‘What happened ? Where am I?’ Nora thought. Then she made out Nate and Shaun in a pod across from her. It all came flooding back. They had done it. Those stupid, stupid sons of bitches had finally had pulled the last pin and blew the world up.

          Decontamination, decompression. That’s what they had told her, as the vault tec doctor guided her over to a large metal pod. It didn’t make sense unless the were ascending somewhere. Vaults were supposed to buried, and not deep enough to really worry about the nitrogen levels of the occupants. Nora forced herself to focus on her more scientific side, lest she think about the neighbors who were unable to get into the vault. Screaming against a pitiful chain link fence. The soldiers, who had guided her family into safety, knowing there was no place for them in salvation, but being stalwart in their duties to the very last second. The vault tec rep who, after working so hard to ensure Nora and Nate would be saved, was callously being turned away to die with everyone else.

          The act of her even flicking over these thoughts caused a pain in Nora. A deep pain that she could physically feel deep in her chest. Nora didn’t know that people could hurt that bad and not die, or at least bleed. Everyone she had ever loved, her parents, her siblings, her friends and her lovers. Gone. Everyone she had ever hated, everyone she had ever seen. And countless other people she had never met. She felt broken. She wanted to fall apart, but denied herself the luxury. ‘Maybe later’ she thought. Forcibly shoving down all the emotions threatening to drown her. ‘when I have the time.’ For now she had to ensure that whatever malfunction that had affected her hadn’t hurt her new world which had shrunk to include only two people.

           Nora took a measured and controlled breath. Staring at Nate, who was beginning to move, forced herself to stop pounding on the pod and wait patiently to be freed. She gasped a few times more and took a large breath in her nose and slowly let it out her mouth. When she could finally hear more than the blood rushing through her ears, she heard unfamiliar voices approaching . She leaned to see the best she could in such cramped quarters.

          “It looks wrong.” She whispered. Everything looked old. An dark. Where were the scientists? Why didn’t the lights work? Why was she locked in her pod, and why had it caused her to pass out?

           Two figures strolled into her field of view. “This is the one. Here.” Called out a female voice. She was covered in a scientist lab coat and what appeared to be a modified gas mask. She approached the pod Nate was in, still cradling Shaun to his chest. She reached out to his pods controls as a balding man holding a pistol strolled in front of her pod with his back now to Nora. It was hard to make out through the frosted glass out into the darkened room, but he appeared to be wearing enough leather for a full cow, and armour enough to look quite intimidating.

          “Open it!” The man barked at the scientists. With a flick of her wrist, she did just that. Nora heard the pneumatic pumps working to open the door, and nearly cried in relief when she heard Nate coughing and Shaun crying from inside.

            “Are we okay?” Nate wheezed at the scientist. Still clutching Shaun like he was afraid the walls would collapse.

            “Almost.” The man spoke in a calming and comforting voice while woman reached for Shaun . “Everything is going to be fine.”

            “No. NO. NO!” Nora began to panic again, they were going to take her baby! She started pounding on the glass of the pod as hard as she could. The man spared her a glance then again turned to Nate. She pounded harder. And harder. She heard the telltale crunch letting her know she had broken her left hand, but that didn’t slow her assault. She didn’t feel it. She didn’t feel anything but panic and rage.

            Nate resisted the scientists insistent hands when she fried to pull Shaun out of Nate’s arms. “No, I got him!”

            It was then the man lifted his silenced pistol, and In an irritated voice ordered . “Let the boy go. I’m only going to tell you once.” As the struggle became more physical with the woman. Half frozen and confused as he was, it was obvious he would win the tug of war and began shouting at them both.

          Nora couldn’t make out what was being said anymore over the sounds of her clawing against the glass, the bolts, her restraints, anything she could reach. She smeared around the edges of the glass with bloody torn fingers. Her breathing no longer had any rhythm and her eyes were wild. She made a primal noise of desperation, one her ears could no longer identify as human.

          The balding man seemed to have run out of patience. As Nate roared, “I’M NOT GIVING YOU SHAUN!” He pulled the trigger. Nate’s head rocked back, his arms going limp, sitting him back in the pod as he caught the bullet square between the eyes. The woman scooped Shaun into her arms quickly stepping back from the pod.

          Nora froze. Her right hand dripping blood down the glass from where she had completely torn off her pinky nail and most of her ring and middle fingernails. Her left splayed painfully at eye level on the cold metal frame. Time had stopped, she was sure. In that forever moment watching her husbands eyes become empty, she felt a sense of vertigo. As if, were she was to look down, there would be naught but a gaping chasm.

          After an eternal heartbeat, she heard the sound of Shaun hearty little lungs. The only sound that mattered and could pierce her haze. With supreme effort, Nora was able to move, though only her eyes, to Shaun. The scientist held him tenderly, rocking him to try and soothe his wails. The balding man made a careless gesture of dismissal and she hurried off.

           He then approached Nora’s pod, peering in unconcernedly. As one does to a common animal at the zoo. He spoke to the scientist, “At least we still have the back up.” And walked off.

           Seconds later as the cold rushed back into Nora’s pod, she closed her eyes, memorizing each and every detail of the abductors. The scar on his face, the gait of her walk. Everything and anything about them. Using every trick and tool she had learned as a prosecuting lawyer trying to clear up cold cases. Her hands lowered, she felt consciousness slip from her, and almost welcomed the darkness.

                                                                                                                   *~*

 

            Fog.

            Breathe.

            BREATHE.

            BREATHE!

            Nora’s lungs screamed for air and she coughed violently. She feebly slapped at the door, relieved when after managing a few painful breaths the pod opened. She tried to step out, and the next thing she knew, she was lying on the floor with a stinging nose.

             Her eyes went to her right hand, the nails had grown back. Sort of. They had healed but still looked jagged. Nora clenched her left hand into a fist. It didn’t hurt. The pods could heal her. She looked at Nate’s pod. It had been reclosed. Maybe it had…

            She jumped up and ran to his pods controls. “C’mon!” She shivered. “C’mon, c’mon. “ The door began to raise and she rushed to look in…..

          At her husbands pristinely frozen corpse. “Oh my god.” She whispered. She leaned in and touched his rigid face tenderly. She wanted to close his eyes, but the frost that had accumulated made it impossible. Instead she took his left hand. Hearing the little clink of their rings meeting making her let out a sob she had no intention of letting out. She again forced the steel into her spine, pulling off Nate’s wedding band.

          “I’ll find who did this. And I’ll get Shaun back!” She promised, closing Nate’s lid once more.  
     

          A mission.

          Focus on the mission.

          Get Shaun, THEN grieve.

           Move.

           Move forward.

           Find Shaun. Kill those fuckers.

           Kill ‘em slow.

           These were the thoughts Nora clung to, repeated over and over. A passerby might have easily confused it with a prayer.  
She saw the rest of her neighborhood in their pods. All dead. It appeared she was the only survivor from the pods.

          On she ventured. All the vault tec staff dead. Irrelevant apart from any information they could have had. Worthless skeletons. Move on.

          Giant, filthy roaches. Squash, move on. Get the heebie jeebies later.

          Weapons, perfect. Ammo, even better. Move on.

          Her purpose brought her the overseers terminal. They had been frozen. Those arrogant, monstrous pricks had cryogenically frozen them.

          Her determination almost stalled to learn these facts. Despair beckoned. The chasm was RIGHT there. But no, Shaun. Find Shaun. That became the new mantra as she made her way to the big vault doors.

          Closed. Don’t panic. Figure it out.

          She found an actually useful skeleton, in that it had a working pipboy. She strapped it on, wiped off the screen and in short order had the doors groaning open. She walked down the path to the elevator, thinking how it seemed like a few hours since she had come in. As it was rising, she wondered how much time it had been. She needed to figure out how much of a lead the abductors had.

          She was about halfway up the shaft when Nora checked the date on her pipboy.

          Wrong, that had to be wrong. 2287? Two hundred and ten years? That couldn’t be. It couldn’t.

          She finally emerged and was blinded by the sun and threw her arm up the shield her eyes. After a few moments she could see past the blue of her vault suit, and looked around.

           She thought her eyes were still adjusting, because as she looked around, everything going seemed to be in the brown side of the color wheel. She spun around and slowly accepted what her eyes were telling her.

           It had been an apocalypse. An actual apocalypse. There were skeletons lying about everywhere. Even the metal structures nearby showed signs of decay.

          That’s when it really hit her. It had seemed like 2 hours tops, and been almost 210 years. And midway through they had taken Shaun. But when? An hour ago? A day? A year? A hundred? Two? She sank to her knees.

          She had no idea what to do, where to go. All her training as a lawyer revolved around backtracking through books and talking to witnesses. She wasn’t a detective. She didn’t know how to find people, let alone bring them to justice herself.

           Justice.

           Nate.

           Sorrow. No! Need to hold on.

          She felt her eyes well up, and forcefully wiped the tears away. A crow landed in front of her and hopped around squawking curiously. That only made her feel worse knowing that had to mean people were so rare, smaller animals no longer feared them.

          She gazed down into sanctuary, her home. Over half the houses were crumbled, and those that remained didn’t appear to be structurally sound. She felt more tears leak, and couldn’t find the will to wipe them away.

          The crow appeared insulted by being forgotten and poked at Nora. She didn’t notice at first, the chasm was calling her. So sweet, so alluring was it’s song. She was already holding a 10 mm. It already was cocked and loaded.

          Poke. Squawk. Poke poke.

          The chasm. The song.

          Poke, poke.

          One little movement. That’s all. So easy.

          Poke. Squawk. POKE!

          “What!” Nora exclaimed. “Go home. Find your own….” Nora’s trailed off. The crow cocked it’s head to the side. “Murder.”

          “That’s funny.” Nora said woodenly.

          She smiled.

          She giggled.

          She laughed.

          Her laughter grew in volume, until it was a shriek, then close to a scream. She laughed as her body choked. She laughed as breaths became difficult. And she laughed when it sounded like her lungs must be bleeding from the force of them. She laughed for what seemed hours. When she finally stopped, throat hoarse and breath shuddering, she sat. Motionless. All through the night and through the dawn, she sat.

         The chasm, it had her.

         And she didn’t care.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Remember all the warnings? Yeah this kind of chapter is why.

 

 

          Nora’s eyes snapped open to painfully strong rays of the mid afternoon sun. She looked around and saw that she had dragged herself to a nearby shed and passed out in it. She still felt drained, yet oddly calm. Tired, yet alert. Without hope and purpose, yet not lost and empty. She just felt the need to go, somewhere. 

          Stumbling out of the control booth, over the previous occupants remains, she looked back over the neighborhood that had held such warmth and security. She felt movement in the stillness of her center and turned away unable to bear the ruins before her. Past some large crates she saw a path that lead away. She checked her weapon and found she had five rounds left, coupled with her  security baton, she felt somewhat secure and started off.

          She wandered down the path and aimlessly roamed the hills finding herself  to be very much parched. She crested a hill and saw that she was overlooking the elevator to the vault again. Sighing and turning to walk away when she spotted a strange marking in chalk. It was a starburst with a check mark in the center. There was a blue tarp hung to make a roof of sorts, a makeshift table and orange chair.  Blessedly there was also water. One was clear and in a can, the other in a dirty old milk container. She snapped open the can and emptied it greedily in a few quick pulls. The little bit left she shook out onto her face and wiped it off. The dirty water she put in a pocket in her vault suit for later. She sat for a few minutes and tried to think of a plan. When nothing came to mind she got up and began walking again away from the vault.

          Within minutes she spotted power lines that were still standing. Power could mean people, or perhaps cities so she decided to follow them. After a few minutes on this path she heard movement in the bush ahead of her. Her heart leapt, full of hope, but her mind screamed caution.

          Kneeling down she pulled out her weapon and crept forward through the brush, hardly breathing and being deliberate with each step to try and minimize her sound as much as she could in the dry terrain. Making her way to a tree trunk she looked out and couldn’t stop a small gasp from escaping her lips.

          There in the sun dappled clearing before her was a creature from a twisted a nightmare. It was mole rat, yet it was the size of a hound dog. It’s naked flesh pink, mottled and dry. It  made a choking shuffling sound as it came round to bear at her. It gnashed a long set of incisors jutting from its mouth, revealing a second set of human like teeth. After blinking it’s milky white eyes for a moment it lunged at Nora with a speed she couldn’t believe.

          She recoiled backwards bringing up her gun and squeezing off two shots wildly as her foot caught on a root knocking her to her back.  The mole rat had closed half the distance screeching wildly and slavering hungrily. Bringing the pistol up between her legs she shot again wincing as it went a little wide and merely grazed the things shoulder, causing it to leap to the side but doing nothing to slow it’s rapid assault.

          “Shit!” Nora shrieked as she brought up her left hand to steady the gun.  The thing was almost on top of her when she fired her final two rounds right between the things eyes. It’s momentum carrying it in a tumble to a rest at her feet. It was still twitching causing her to drop her now useless weapon and skittering backwards a few feet across the dead earth. 

          She looked at the thing again and between the smell and the horror of its appearance,  combined with the stress caused her to turn on her side and vomit.  Violently. All the water she had just drank spilling out onto the ground. She heaved a few more times and then rolled onto her back gasping.

          She lay there for no more than a minute when she heard the sound of footsteps through the dry bush. Quickly sitting up she pulled out her baton while looking desperately for her pistol. The bushes near the corpse had shed their leaves burying it from view.

          “Girl, you picked the wrong fight.”  Chuckled a rough looking man emerging from around a tree.  He had coal black hair pulled into a small ponytail with a dark shadow of a beard. He looked as rough as the timber of his voice, as menacing as the modified rifle he carried, Nora couldn’t believe her eyes, the man was wearing the remnants of a shirt with dozens of belts on his arms and stomach, a well as dark pants that may have been denim once with a few more belts thrown on. She couldn’t tell which was filthier, the man or the way he was looking her over. 

          He took a few steps towards her while she was assessing him, still not yet training his gun on her. Seeing this as an opportunity, she quickly scrambled to her feet and swung her baton catching the rifle and knocking it from the man’s grip. 

          “Bitch!” He roared at her, as her momentum spun her away from him and she bolted.

          For about half a pace, then the weight of the bigger man was tangled in her legs knocking her face first to the dusty earth. A big powder cloud appeared around them as all the wind was knocked from her.  Stinging in her eyes, then invading her lungs as she managed a gasp after an eternity. Watching in slow motion as her baton flew from her grasp, panic really set in. She clawed the ground in front of her to look for purchase to pull away, for her useless gun, for a rock to smash the foul smelling man with, anything,  kicking all the while.

          He had begun climbing her legs grabbing her thighs ruthlessly, grunting when she connected a kick. Nora chanced a glance over her shoulder at him and wanted to vomit all over again at the sick, triumphant grin on his face. He looked nearly mad, with the glassy eyes of a drug addiction,  like so many she had had to interview as a lawyer. She elbowed him in the face  as hard as she could, but only struck a glancing blow off his jaw. 

          “You stupid cunt!” He spat as he punched her, first in the ribs, then as he pulled himself entirely on top of her and rung her bell. He then grabbed her head by the ponytail and drove it into the ashy ground.

          She made a pitiful noise somewhere between a groan and a sob, as the man stood and hoisted her over his shoulder. She tried desperately to fight but her limbs felt like jelly and her eyes just wouldn’t focus. She could taste blood in her mouth, even stronger than the leftover taste of vomit.

          The man walked back the way he had come, and after cresting a small hill he called out. “Hey Tuck, look what I found.”

          Nora couldn’t see the man who replied “Nice job man!” but after a few dozen more painful jostling steps, he came into view as a blurry shape. She was then thrown to the ground, and before she could move, was promptly sat upon effectively pinning her by her captor.

          “Grab the handcuffs from the duffle, and bring em here.” He barked at the man while capturing her hands over her head. By now her eyes were starting to clear and some of her strength was returning,  so she used all of it, almost managing her buck her assailant off. But he was heavy and while she may have had a chance at her full strength,  she was far from it. Rather then punishing her for the attempts the man seemed amused. “D’awwww look at the little vaultie trying to fight.”

          By then the other man had returned. She turned to look at him gaping at her. He was younger  and slighter than the man atop her. He was sporting a short brown Mohawk,  and was either to young to grow a proper beard or already had taken care of it. His lanky frame was covered with a harness for a shirt, camo pants, and a worn pair of Shit kickers. Catching her gaze he grinned and started to rub at his crotch with one hand while dangling the cuffs with his other.

          “Give me a hand with her.” The older man ordered, still laughing at her attempts for freedom. “I’m going to strip this Bitch.”

          “But I kinda like the blue Dale.” Tuck whined.

          “Then you can fucking wear it.” Dale sneered. “Now hold her goddamned hands!”

          Tuck bent to do as instructed,  still whining. “I meant to just cut a hole or two in it.”

          “Nah man, with the vaulties, you wanna peel ‘em when they’re fresh. They’re always so clean.”  Dale replied licking his lips at her, flicking her with drool. By now Tuck had a firm grip on her hands, freeing up Dale’s  to pull down the zipper on the front of her vault suit. He did it agonizingly slow savoring every inch of skin it revealed. Her bustiness ensured that quickly it was a lot of inches. “Mmhfmm.” He groaned “ See what I mean, you every seen a bra so white? Or so Full?” He paused a moment to paw at her breasts. 

          She turned her head to the side unable to watch as he resumed pulling the zipper past her navel, to its end just above her panty line. She felt him shift down to sit painfully on her knees, and flinched when he licked her from sternum down, pausing in her belly button, until he was forcing it as far as the suit would allow.

          It was then that Tuck put her right hand under his knee grinding it painfully into the ground as he fumbled with the clips on her pipboy, before deftly yanking it off so he could quickly recapture her hand.

          He was not quite quick enough, and she grabbed his harness and yanked him violently to the right pitching him off her onto his side. She then tried to push Dale off as well, but a stinging slap to her face was all she accomplished for her efforts. He then easily held her arms down at her sides as she started  to thrash wildly, cursing and spitting.

          “C’mon fucknuts,” chortled Dale. “Gimme a hand, pull down her suit.” 

          Tuck got back to his feet more embarrassed than angry, picked up the dropped cuffs and set them by her head before yanking the shoulders of her cobalt jumpsuit down. He shuffled closer and lent over her to push her sleeves past her elbow. Seeing an opportunity Nora lunged forward and bit the youth just below his pecs.  He flinched back before she could do any serious damage, her teeth clicking loudly together.

          “Whore-bitch!” He shrieked, falling back onto his butt, clutching the scrapes her teeth had left. She was grimly satisfied to see that he was bleeding from it, if only a bit. He cocked his fist, but she refused to flinch.

          “Nah, don’t hit her, just get the duct tape and muzzle her for now. I wanna keep her looking good for a bit. Well at least till Landa gets back. You know how she loves a pretty face.” Dale held her arms over her head once more using his superior weight to still her final struggles, which were becoming pathetic, if no less frequent.

          “You gotta smack her around lots.” Tuck grumbled as he crawled a few paces to the duffle bag and began rooting around.

          “Yeah but I know how to hurt without leaving too many marks. Only place this Bitch is swelling up is her scalp and inside her mouth. But don’t worry, with the amount of fight in her, I’ll be able to train you up on it to. Well, she should last that long.” Seeing the cold light in Dales eyes chilled her to her bones. He planned on killing her. Relishing it as much as her impending rape judging by his crazed look.

          She looked around wildly for a weapon, or maybe a good Samaritan.  She was at the base of an eletrical tower on a sleeping bag that looked like it had been there for weeks in the elements. They had set a campfire in the center. Bits of what she guessed was meat cooking on cinder blocks around it, along with a few dingy cans. Nothing she saw was going to help her.

           It was then she heard the sound of the tape ripping and Tuck approaching with a fervor in his own gaze as he gripped her face painfully with one hand as he placed the tape over her mouth with the other. He gave her face a few condescending pats and picked up cuffs, being passed her hands by Dale clicked them into the cuffs almost gently.

          She tried to keep fighting, but it was so difficult to breathe. The traitorous tears began to leak from her eyes, but did nothing to change her expression of rage. Tuck knelt on the chain of the cuffs and lent forward over her, she watched horrified as he pulled out a combat knife out of his pocket and slid it into her cleavage. At the same time Dale was working her vault suit the rest of the way down her body, slapping her stomach so she would part her legs.  Instead she hooked her ankles together and used the last of her strength to keep it that way.

           “Fine, be that way.” Dale smiled, then drove his knee viciously down twice between her thighs, her body reacted to the pain and her legs were forced apart. He pulled her suit off and tossed it a few feet away. Keeping his leg between hers so she couldn’t try and close them again, he backed up a bit so he could lean over her sex while holding onto to both her thighs. He inhaled  deeply, closing his eyes as if he were in bliss.

          It was then that Tuck jerked up on the knife sawing through her bra. Her ample breasts were in view for barely a few seconds before Tuck latched his mouth on one sucking greedily, while gripping the other far too tightly and yanking on the nipple.

           Not to be out done, Dale produced his own blade, slicing through the crotch of her panties, leaving her with a ruined cotton belt. He leaned on her leg while keep the other pushed open and began to stroke at her slit.

          By this time Nora was trembling, from shock, rage, fear, and although she would never admit it,  even to herself, desire. She didn’t want them on her, or in her.  Her best fantasy of how this turned out involved both of the men buried six feet under. Perhaps whilst still alive. Maybe limbless. But that wasn’t being communicated to her snatch. With the presence of two men lusting for her and now paying such attention, she was getting wet.

          It didn’t take Dale long to notice, and he crowed to Tuck “See this Bitch already wants us. Must not have been any men in her vault.”

          “Think she’s a rug muncher? She’ll  live longer with Landa  if she is. Wonder if that means we got to teach her to suck dick?” 

          “Christ man, you talk too much. Just put a tit in your trap and let’s hurry, she’ll be back soon, and I wanna get at least one good one before she does.” Dale seemed satisfied she would be wet enough and shucked his pants down his hips pulling out his cock. He batted away her legs as tried to kick him  yet again and slapped her opening a few times with his throbbing member, before shoving himself to the hilt with a satisfied groan.

          Nora gasped the best she could with the tape at the sudden intrusion. He was no means the stud that Nate was, but he had a sizable cock nonetheless, and she simply wasn’t ready for entry, and certainly not for the fast merciless pace he began at, clutching her legs in an iron grip.

          “Fuck that, I’m gettin off too.” Tuck grinned. He picked up the dirty water that had fallen from her pocket when she had been first dropped and poured some onto her chest. He scooched up so he was straddling her head at an angle. It was not a great view, nor was it made any better when he opened his pants to pull out his own dick. Longer than she would have guessed for his frame, but as lean as the rest of him. Looking back to make sure he still had the cuffs under his leg, and that her tape was secure, he grabbed onto her breasts forcing them together and shoving himself into the softness of them.

           All she could do now was turn her head away from the hideous site of her body being pillaged. Try to block out the sound of the men heaving in her. Easier said then done. And what was worst, the pain was quickly fading. The harsh strokes of Dales, the frantic flailing of Tuck had her body doing what it did best, building to a crescendo. Accepting pain and pleasure was something she was no stranger to, which is why she started adding herself to the muttered  curses from behind the tape.

         Her legs began to shake and she could tell her orgasm was almost upon her. She squeezed her eyes shut tights forcing out more tears, barely able to make out the sounds of the men nearing there own climax over the sound of blood pounding in her ears. She didn’t want this.

          “Fuck! Here I go!” Tuck shrieked grabbing her nipples alone to hold her tight against him.

           He kept thrusting a few more times before sitting back breathing hard. He smirked to see her turned away, and grabbed her face, wiping the last of his cum on the tape below her nose. She flashed angry eyes full of vengeful promises at him. His own smile fell off in return. 

           Dale had increased the tempo of his thrusts, and pulled one leg over his shoulder while pinning the other beneath him. He reached down and started ruthlessly rubbing at her clit, the frantic motions belying how close his own orgasm was. 

          She couldn’t hold back any longer, try as she might. Cursing herself Nora came, pulling taut as a bow, the feeling of which Dale could not withstand and he exploded inside her as the last of her orgasm shuddered through her.

          He too sat back breathing hard, but with a satisfied look on his face.  “Good God girl, you were worth the trouble.” He chuckled and stood removing a syringe from his pocket. He tapped it a few times and pulling open her legs injected her in her inner thigh. She felt a rush of fire course through her veins, then everything started feeling heavy. “That aughta keep her out for a few hours. Landa should be back by then.” 

           She could hear them continue to talk, or argue by the sound of it for a short while longer before the blackness beckoned. Then overtook her. She was getting sick of that. Real sick.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about taking so long to update. Life events had left me unmotivated, but that has changed and I should be updating more frequently.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yeah it's getting worse for Nora.

          Nora hummed to herself happily as she arranged her supplies neatly in front of her. The smell of baking cookies wafting through the air. She occasionally crooned along with Luis Armstrong to A Kiss To Build A Dream On, while picking up a set of sewing supplies and adding to the little pack she was making. She smiled as she felt Nate’s hand slide over her shoulder to rub her giant belly.

          “Another badge for your belt?” Nate teased while snuggling his face into her neck.

          “Camping.” She replied, swatting at his head with a pamphlet. “Now be useful and mark it off the list for me.”

          He sweetly pecked her check and  took the boy scout pamphlet from her, opening it his eyes widened in surprise. Of the 57 badges , most had been crossed out. “Honey, you’re almost done! You only have six more badges to go.” He took a red pen from off the fridge and marked off the camping badge for her. “ Well, five now.” He looked at her a little worriedly. “You know I didn’t get this many in my three and a half years, you sure your not overdoing it?” 

         She snorted, “ Yes, since I’ve had so much else to do since getting pregnant.  Between you, and  my boss, I was lucky to tie my shoes, now with Codsworth, I don’t even get to do that much.” 

          Nate smiled wickedly as Nora stood up rubbing her belly happily. “To be fair, it was about the time we got him you stopped being able to reach them.”

           “You’re pretty brave for a man I could squish.” She approached him trying to be as intimidating as she could. Being so very pregnant,  and unable to keep the twinkle from her eye didn’t help her case.

          “Sounds like I’m going to have to start bringing the power armor home with me.” He jested, arms up as if to ward her off. Instead he caught her, lifting her up to spin her around. She threw her head back giggling like a little girl again.

          She leaned forward to give him a kiss. He held her head pulling her softly. She cracked her eyes open. And before them bloomed  a river of blood from his forehead.

          She gripped her stomach, alone, drenched in sticky blood. She looked out and saw that she was adrift in an ocean of it, as the baby shifted painfully.

          Too painfully.

          Nora’s eyes tried hard to open, pain pulling her to her leaden body. With every labored breath through the tape she became a little more aware of her body. The aches in her ankles from her new restraints. Some kind of wire by the feel of it. The stabbing glare of the sunset rays, the giant mass in her mouth, which she could only assume was her tongue. Her dying thirst and the ache in her shoulders from her hands still being above her head. The fetid stink of the dry cum on the tape.

          She immediately tried to move her arms, but found they had been pegged to the earth. Bleary-eyed she looked around and saw the two men sitting by the campfire, eating and drinking heartily. They had another companion now, a dark female had joined them. After watching for only a few minutes it was obvious that she was the one in charge. 

They had not yet noticed her sluggish return to consciousness. Nora closed her eyes again and willed herself still. She had to do something, anything to improve her situation. She was frustrated by her lack of available movement, but her mind still worked. After a fashion.

The hot wind gusted, a stray lock of hair danced over the bridge of her nose. She hated that a lot. Although she loved having her long hair, she couldn’t stand the feel of it on her face. It drove her crazy, especially since she couldn’t even blow it off with the tape over her mouth. This was why she used so many bobby pins for even a simple ponytail.

Bobby pins!

Sneaking a peek out of the corner of her eye, she saw the group still hadn’t noticed her. She had to do it now, as judging from he amount of liquor being imbibed, she would not be forgotten much longer. She slowly edged her body up and strained the cuffs painfully down. It was only after stretching her neck and body agonizingly, that she was able to touch her head. Even then it took a few excruciating minutes to locate a pin in the mess her neat hairdo had been reduced to. 

Finally she had it! 

Unfortunately it was at that moment she heard the heavy sound of boots approaching. She decided that continuing to feign sleep would be the best for now, as she concealed the pin in her hand. That only lasted for a heart beat before a blinding kick was delivered to her ribs, right on top of her bruise from the earlier assault.

Nora shrieked the best she could as white stars exploded in front of her eyes. She was fairly sure that she had at least a broken rib, maybe more. The ugly sound of laughter bubbled over her ears. The strike had been delivered by the new addition to the group. Locking eyes with her , Nora realized while the men were brutal and aggressive the woman was the cruel one. The evil one.

She knelt, straddling Nora’s chest. “Look at what a nice gift my boys got for me.” She stroked her face tenderly, then ripped off her tape. Capturing Nora’s head between her hands she tilted it from side to side appraisingly. “Yeah, she’ll be a right fine canvas.” The woman stepped back to better view of Nora’s battered body. She pulled a baton from the back of her belt and started be rubbing it down the outside of her left leg, through the insides, back to her outer right leg.

“But a whore like you just had to seduce them, didn’t cha?” the woman snarled, and began to strike at the multiple bruises the men had carelessly left on her. She was striking just shy of bone breaking strength.

By the third hit Nora could no loner hold back her whimpers. She wanted to curse and spit at this woman, but she was to tired, too thirsty and in to much pain to do anything but weep. And hold onto the bobby pin with a death grip.

Once the woman had been satisfied she had created her own marks over top of the others she grinned. “Yeah she marks up real nice.” She turned to Dale, smiling evilly. “You two can have her til I finish setting up.”

“How long?” Dale respectfully asked.

“Oh, I think she’ll get the full treatment.”

“Miss Yolanda,” Tuck spoke while looking no farther than his boots. “Isn’t that a bit far? She’s got a strong body, we could use her and sell her for a mint when were done.” His voice reduced to a near whisper by the time he was finished.

Rather than answer the youth, Yolanda merely approached him silently and stood by his shoulder. Within seconds Tuck was on his knees. “Please! I’m sorry! I didn’t mean it! Whatever you want is for the best!” by the end he was breathing hard and tears were in his eyes.

Yolanda turned to him “Hmmm? What are you goin on about? I’m thinking about exactly the order ima do it. I want her to stay alive for as long as she can. That look in ‘er eyes.” She hissed her breath in past her teeth. “That’s going to be worth holding onto.” She smiled strolling to the campfire and pulled over a cherry red tool box. The sun had nearly set by now, so she was using the light of the campfire to neatly set up a variety of tools and hideous looking instruments.

“You heard the boss Tuck.” Dale patted his shoulder as he walked past him, unbuckling his pants with a shadow of a grin.  He sat down between her opened legs, and reached into his pocket to pull out a small bottle of oil. He poured it onto her sex and smeared all over, ensuring that plenty found its way into her anus.

Tuck had recovered enough to crawl over to her arms. Within seconds he had pulled the stake holding her  to the ground out, then producing the key to her cuffs undid her left hand long enough to sit her in Dales waiting lap. She tried to slap at him, but she had only become weaker during her time out, while they had refueled themselves. With a click both her hand were again secured but this time behind her. She still managed to hold onto her pin, but with the strength of their arms on her, now was not the moment to try and use it.

Dale smiled into her face, holding a pair of plyers millimeters from her eye. “If you try and bite ME, were going to take your teeth. But don’t hold back.” His hands circled her waist and forced her to grind against his cock, throbbing and hungry. “I want to hear your screams. Especially when I make you cum again.”

She snapped her mouth closed vowing to be as silent as she could. Her resolve already being tested as she felt Tucks cock rubbing against her rear searching for her back door. As he found it he wrenched her head back by her hair and buried himself in her neck. She could feel his hot breath pause as he thrust himself into her.

Her whole body jolted at the intrusion, so much she almost lost her pin. She had barely recovered it when Dale lifted her and plunged her down onto his shaft. As Tucks hands slid down to her ass to lift her for each thrust, Dale had taken hold of her breasts and used them to painfully guide her where he wanted. He soon grew bored of that, and took a nipple into his mouth, biting painfully.

The feel of them invading her, sliding against each other even as oiled as she was brought her no pleasure. She swallowed scream after scream as the pain ripped through her.

“Mmm. I think this cunt got tighter.” Dale groaned.

Tuck was far to preoccupied to answer. Nora guessed he was high as a kite judging from the franticness of his motions and the slightly gaseous smell on his breath. He still had tears in his eyes when he forced her face to face with himself. She bared her teeth at him, earning a tap on the jaw with the plyers from Dale. Even so she was only barely able to hold herself back from biting him when he kissed her. As he did so he screwed his face up and after a few more painful thrusts she could feel him spill, hot and far too deep inside her.

Tuck immediately pulled himself away, breathing far harder than he should have as he had only lasted a few minutes. He pulled up him pants as if ashamed and shuffled off. He started to walk to the fire, but after seeing the Yolanda was nearly done setting up her own version of hell, simply grabbed a bottle and sat on the farthest base of the tower with his back to them. 

Dale however was not finished with her. “Great now its how a want” he murmured in ear. Before shoving her from his lap and shifting her so she was face first in the dirt, her legs now free. They both knew they weren’t of much use with all the damage Tuck had just caused. He slapped her across the ass then mounted her again.

Nora’s tears streaked down her face, to be absorbed into the thirsty earth, as Dale continued his pounding assault.

“Dale hun. Just cause I like you, ima give you one more minute, but then you bringing that axe wound over here.” Yolanda called over, as she double checked her devices, to ensure her supplies were at the precise angle and distance from her.

Dale increased his tempo in response, dripping with more sweat than ever. The slick sound of her body, and the hoarse grunts he was letting out filled the night. The dirt abrasive on her face and in her mouth.

“Hey! Her face!” Yolanda scolded.

In response Dale leaned over her body and grabbed her around the throat hauling her top half up by it, but hadn’t slowed his pace for an instant.

Within seconds Nora’s vision began to blacken, and to her horror, although she wasn’t feeling anything but pain, an orgasm was beginning to curl through her. As the last bit of her breath and consciousness were about to leave her, she felt her body explode. Dale released her throat and thrust her high so he was buried as far as possible and came inside her with a shout.

Nora felt herself go numb. She began to see her body as if apart from it. Like she was a spectator and not a victim. It was a bit easier that way. She was about to accept this state of mind when Dale leaned down and whispered into her ear. “Girl, I’m going to see if Yolanda will keep you alive long enough,” He stroked her stomach. “To see if my seed ain’t taken root.”

Nora felt as if a bucket of ice water had been dumped onto her. 

Shaun.

The water crept into her veins and she was one with her body again.

Dale zipped himself up.

Nora forced her thumb into the bobby pin bending it into a usable shape.

Dale scooped her up and carried her maiden style to Yolanda , where he put her down with a near tenderness, as if to apologize for the brutality. Looking around, Nora saw she was in the center of a nightmare, in the form of twisted metals, acids and surgical equipment. Not to mention many things that were as frightening as the were unidentifiable. She did note that they would be just a bit outside of her immediate reach.

She angled her hands beneath her, focused only on finding the hole to the cuffs. 

Yolanda gently stroked her face, to pull away all the wisps of hair. “It took me a while, but I know what I'm going to do first.” She said to Dale. 

He said nothing but his stance was tense, and his attention was fully on Yolanda. It was obvious she didn’t want him to participate anymore, even as much as conversation.

“Yeah first ima let everyone know that you belong to me.” She held out her hand and without question, Dale produced his knife and placed it handle first in her grip. As she pulled a homemade battery closer to them, Dale shook his head ruefully, and went to join Tuck. He did manage something close to a strut as he grabbed he last rusty can and liquor bottle on his way over.

Nora felt the pin finally slide into to hole and tried sliding it first left, then right. She had to be very careful as she only had the one pin, and couldn’t see what she was doing.

Yolanda peeled the top of the battery back and dipped her knife into the acid within. She grinned at Nora, “This is my favorite way of marking. You’re lucky.” She brought the knife over Nora’s  right eye. She could see a drop of acid on the tip, it looked nearly large enough to fall.

Rather then cry or look away, she just evenly locked eyes with her torturer. She had felt movement in the lock. She was going to get free. Then she was going to kill all of hem

Yolanda giggled, surprisingly feminine. She then pulled he knife to midway over Nora’s eyebrow and plunged it in. Dragging it down for two inches before pulling it out. The searing acid mostly cauterizing the wound as it was being created. Tears had erupted from Nora’s eyes, but her expression hadn’t faltered. 

“Little bitch, you sure cry weird.” Yolanda frowned as she placed the knife tip back into the battery. “It’s like you ain’t ashamed.”

Nora wasn’t ashamed. When she was cut, she bled. When she was hurt, her eyes got wet. And when her erogenous zones were stimulated enough, she came. Especially when you added erotic asphyxiation to the mix. And when she got the cuffs off, she would kill, normal responses.

Yolanda brought the knife out and shook the excess acid off. She seemed less pleased as she brought it up a few inches from her original stroke. Nora looked around wildly for a weapon, her eyes catching on a red handled screwdriver. Just out of reach.

It was just then the pin finally caught on the tumbler. In a flash Yolanda plunged the knife back into her face, this time getting the scream she was hoping for. At the same time Nora unlocked her right hand and reached for the screwdriver. It should have been about 4 inches from her reach, but through her shimmering vision, saw it inexplicably roll towards her had. 

Yolanda had barely grasped that she was no longer fully in control when Nora thrust the screwdriver into her ear, continuing her scream to cover the sound. Yolanda dropped onto Nora’s chest heavily. Nora quickly shoved her off and sat up, hoping the men wouldn’t be drawn over.

She needn’t have worried, it seemed the men were professionals when it came to not paying attention to Yolanda.

Nora knew that might not last much longer, so she needed a gun. She was sure she wouldn’t be able to sneak over to the men in her current condition. Looking around she saw someone had retrieved  Dales rifle from the clearing where he had first found her. Crawling the best she could, she made her way to the weapon. It was loaded, and had a decent scope.

She found she had to crawl a bit farther around the fire to see the men in the darkness. Raising the rifle up she steadied her breathing. She needed to hurry, but haste made waste, and this first shot was vital.

She exhaled slowly, lined up the center of Dales head, held her breath, then fired. She was gratified to see him pitch over onto Tucks lap pining the youth there. By the time Tuck realized anything was happening, she had lined up her shot and was squeezing the trigger. 

“Please, I –“ He got no farther as Nora eternally silenced him.

Hearing a noise in the brush, she swung the rifle around and aimed it. Through the blood and shimmering tears, she looked, and saw nothing.

 

 


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> No smut in this one.

        With numb fingers, Nora dropped the rifle. She had just killed three people. Her stomach roiled, and she wanted to vomit, but there was nothing left in her. She fell to her side in the fetal position shuddering and gasping.

        Her entire adult life had been about putting killers away. Now she was one of them. 

        The worst of it, the part that was shaking her to her core, was that she didn’t feel  any guilt about it. 

        She would do it again.

        She wanted to do it again.

        What was she becoming? She shook her head, it didn’t matter.

        What mattered is what she was. Alive. And she was going to stay that way. 

        She sat herself up wincing painfully. She could feel the mixture of blood and semen leaking from her down her leg. It was a vile sensation, but she was more concerned about the pain in her side. Breathing was difficult, but didn’t seem to be impaired. She tenderly touched her side biting her lip as she poked and counted two for sure broken ribs, and perhaps more had hairline factures.  

        She looked down at her ravaged body. It was then she realized the extent of the abuse she had suffered. She had more then a dozen bruises interspersed on her body. The smallest was the size of a grapefruit, and one on her inner thigh took up most of her upper leg. 

        As if the sight of them were the trigger, a fresh wave of pain rolled over her causing her to gasp. She needed medical equipment and that meant heading back to the hell circle Yolanda had lovingly created for her. She realized that the drugs she had been injected with before were still a bit in effect as she had numbness in her limbs as she was crawling back. 

        She chose to simply not see the body where hers was meant to be, and began searching through the supplies, begrudgingly thankful for the ease she was able to take inventory. What first grabbed her attention was a small worn leather bag. Shaking it out provided a wealth of assorted vials and syringes. There were some there devices she didn’t recognize, but blessedly there were two stimpacks. 

        Grabbing one she jammed it between the two broken ribs and pressed the plunger, sighing in relief as the cool liquid began to work its magic. But it was not nearly enough for all her injuries. 

         She had a decision, to use the second on her face, or on her lower half. As she felt her ribs snap into place the solution became obvious. She pushed the second into her abdomen just below her navel and waited a few minutes before trying to rise.

        She was as wobbly as a newborn colt, but could walk with relatively little pain. Her face however still burned and occasionally made her need to blink away the blood. Not a lot of the wound was bleeding, having been cauterized, but the head does bleed substantially. 

        Nora  continued her assessment of the devices searching for gauze and tape. Sadly there was nothing of the sort available to her. She looked down, realizing she was still wearing the cuffs as well as her ruined undergarments, and inspiration struck.

        First she retrieved the pin still caught in the lock of the dangling cuff and unlocked them letting them fall onto the small of Yolanda’s back. Next she slowly shimmied off her underwear band, aching with each movement. Picking up the knife that had fallen from Yolanda’s hand, she created a pad from the crotch of her underwear and secured it to her head with the band. It wasn’t pretty, but it worked, stopping the flow of blood.

        A wind chilled her flesh causing a riot of goosebumps. Glancing down, she considered stripping the dead woman, but her armor seemed more for combat than for warmth. She did pull off the scarf that had been concealing the bottom of the woman’s face. Walking over to the sleeping bag, she stiffly wiped herself the best she could, and picked up her vault suit, absently nudging over her pipboy beside it. In a few painful moments she had the suit pulled up to her waist.

        Pulling a few more pins from her hair, she bent them flat, then pulled the cups of her bra together, securing the cut strap with the pins. It wasn’t a perfect fix, but held her together long enough to zip up her suit the rest of the way.  In short order she had the pipboy clipped on, and the rest of the pins free from her hair, and had secured it. There were wisps floating about, but the pins seemed to be too valuable to waste in her hair. She placed the rest in her pocket, relieved to feel Nate’s ring was still there.

        More than anything she wanted to leave, but knew she had to be smart, and see what she could find that may prove useful. She turned with dead eyes to take in the sight of Yolanda, still face down in the dirt and a puddle that must have been a mixture of their blood. The screwdriver was still leaking a slow but steady drip of blood. She knelt down and retrieved all the drugs and chems, placing them back in the bag and trying it with it’s leather thong to the flap on her pocket. 

         Opening the toolbox, she reached out to place the instruments back in, the first item appeared to be a speculum. As she was about to place it in the box, she caught a look of the dried viscera on it from the firelight. Horrified she tossed it into the fire. A scalpel was next, as she couldn’t tell if it was rusted or filthy. 

        Looking at the instruments, she realized she wouldn’t, couldn’t carry any of them with her. The pieces may only weigh ounces, but they would be far to heavy. She started methodically to cast the items in the fire, but with each piece she cast, her breathing grew more ragged. She began flinging the components, desperate for them to no longer exist. Finally there was no more and she was scrabbling at the dirt.

         The smell of the campfire had gotten foul and thick. Nora was glad for the cover of night which would hide the smoke trail until morning. She sat beside Yolanda calmer now, and flipped the dead woman over, avoiding her vacant gaze.

        It was clear that the suit wasn’t going to be enough to keep her safe. So she stripped the corpse one piece at a time. As she focused only on each buckle, each piece, her hands began to steady, so that  by the time she was finished, her breath was finally in some semblance of normal. With each piece she then put upon herself she felt a little stronger. That may have been the stimpaks, but she felt almost normal again when she stood.

         The duffle bag caught her eye, open as it was she caught a glimpse of a bottle of Nuka Cola. Nora almost tripped over herself in her haste. Grabbing it she tore off the cap, tossing it aside and pulled greedily. She gasped as she emptied it, tossing the bottle, she rooted through the bag. She grimly smiled as her hand wrapped around a glowing bottle of quantum. She had never trusted the luminous liquid, but now, worrying about odd pee seemed ludicrous at best.

         She tossed the cap aside and stood taking a drink, kicking the bag over, dumping out its contents to see better in the firelight. Most of it seemed to be tools, there was a hammer, pliers, tongs and a few screwdrivers. They seemed clean, so she decided to take them. There was also a strange leather box with dials on the top. Picking it up, she saw the inside of the leather lid had instructions on how to use it. It read it was a stealthboy, and went into a pocket as well. 

         Taking another sip she saw the duct tape that had been used on her before, as well as a second pair of handcuffs. It was tempting to chuck them into the fire, but the tape especially seemed too useful. So instead so scooped all the supplies back into the duffle bag, and hoisted it over her shoulder. 

         Walking back to the rifle, she paused to pick up the baton Yolanda had beaten her with. She was infuriated to see it had the 111 stamp on the bottom. The bitch had beat her with her own baton. 

         “Well I killed you.” She spat at the expired tormentor, sticking out her tongue. She drained the last of the soda and tossed it at the offending carcass. It bounced off the screwdriver causing the body to jerk.

         She couldn’t help the small giggle, this whole thing had her feeling a little giddy. Though she wasn’t sure if it was the sugar rush or the blood lose causing it. Or perhaps it was the wanton homicide. She thought as she picked up the rifle.

        Nate had taken her to the range enough that she felt comfortable with most weapons, but her aim tended to be rushed and maintenance skills were nearly non-existent. So she looked over the rifle hoping her carelessness hadn’t ruined anything.

        “Typical!” she muttered as she pried off the ruined scope. The rest of the weapon seemed to in working order. Checking the ammo, she saw there were still two rounds left. That didn’t feel like enough, so she  made her way to the dead men to begin rooting through their pockets. 

         On Dale she found her 10 mm, reloaded, and some more chems. There were also a handful of bottle caps. She thought it odd, but pocketed them anyway. Feeling more comfortable with the pistol,  she stashed the rifle in the duffle. She was disappointed there were no more stimpaks, but grateful when she found a med-x. While she was stiff and sore now, she figured it would be wiser to hold on to it for later, so they all went into the chem bag. It was nearly half full now. 

        Tuck was a different story. Apart from his knife, which she promptly tucked in her boot, he had nothing on him. Sighing in disappointment, Nora felt she could finally leave. She looked around to try and get her bearings. Over the crackle of the flames, she could hear a stream nearby.

        Looking over her shoulder at the nightmare behind her to make sure she hadn’t left anything of value behind, she began her descent. It was only a short walk until she was knee deep in the stream. The water had an uncomfortable warmth to it. She quickly realized the water must be irradiated. 

         Opening her chem pouch she fished around and shook out a bottle of rad-x, popping one in her mouth tried to dry swallow. However even after two bottles of soda, she was still too parched, and needed a sip from the stream. 

        She was tempted to walk on the river bank, but she knew if one rule from before had survived, it’s assholes had friends. Usually a lot, and when they took in that scene they would be coming hard and fast for her blood. So she slogged down the stream trusting it to hide her footsteps.

        She was able to continue this way for almost an hour, when fatigue hit her like a truck. Looking around she was startled to see she recognized the area. She and Nate had been checking out the area after they moved in, when they had found a Rangers cabin. Looking up through the dead wood, she could see it was still standing.

        Climbing over the streams edge she crouched down making her way to the cabin.

        “Oh, this is BULLSHIT!” she hissed taking in the sight of a mosquito in the moonlight, it had to be the size of a toddler. It had long spindly legs that clutched the faded green paint, and a large blood sac that seemed to be nearly at capacity. It seemed to be sleeping as it clung to the side of the building. Raising her 10 mm she lined up a shot, careful to use both hands, and fired. The bug exploded in a bloody mess, flinging is gore past her head.

         Nora remained motionless, waiting to see if another attacker would appear , all her senses on high alert. When it had been nearly ten minutes, she finally felt safe enough to move forward. Still at a crouch, she skirted the mess and made her way to the front door. 

         When she saw there was no actual door, she almost reconsidered, but then she saw a mattress, filthy as it was, it looked like heaven. Unfortunately there was already an occupant, a sad little skeleton in a dress.

        Looking around, she saw a strange glowing fungus on the wall, it had a sickly sweet scent and resembled a brain. Nora cocked her head to the side at the sight of, then shook it. 

        There was also a broken down bed, and a knocked over kitchen table. The first order of business was to block the front entry, so she tossed her duffle onto an old stereo near the strange growth. Then grasped the more ruined foot end of the bed, and with a full exhausting pushes and pulls, had it propped against the door. If it didn’t totally block the frame, it did ensure there would be a warning of assault, and perhaps enough to tangle an attacker for a few precious seconds.

         Next she picked up on side of the mattress allowing the skeleton to slide off as respectfully as she could, wincing when the skull cracked against the floor causing the cap to come off. She dragged it near the front door, and hid it behind the table. Now she should be shielded from view. 

         She saw a yellow suite case, and approached it, hopeful for a blanket. Instead she found a holotape, a  clean green dress and a pack of gum.

         She was too tired to see what the tape had to say, so she made a pillow from the dress, and curled up on the mattress. Gripping the 10 mm she closed her eyes and waited for sleep to come.

 


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A familiar face appears.

        A loud growl awoke Nora with a start. She gripped her weapon and brought it up as another low grumble echoed throughout the cabin. Blinking rapidly to clear the sleep and confusion from her eyes, she laughed quietly. The sound was originating from her stomach. She was hungry!

         Drawing herself up, she carefully placed the pistol in her lap, and pulled off the strap on her head. The dried blood kept the pad mostly stuck to her forehead as she fixed her hair one again, lamenting at the crusty feel of dried blood and other filth therein.

         She thought about removing the pad, but seeing as irradiated water was all she had to wash it with, it seemed best to leave it as is of now. She was glad she had as she felt a bit of blood start to flow with the replacement of the strap. She winced as she was standing, but the sleep had certainly done her well. She felt almost chipper as she stretched out a few pains. 

        Picking up the holotape from the night before, she slid it into her pipboy.  She listened to a young girls voice recounting her heartbreaking story as she popped the bubble gum into her mouth.

        “Maybe, he’ll never know”

        “Oh honey, no.” Nora whispered. Then she realized it didn’t really matter, as the ending to the story was laying a few feet away. 

        Unwrapping the last two pieces of gum, she swallowed her piece and jammed the others in, trying not to think about what could have been. If the bombs hadn’t fell, if she and Nate had come this way. It was hard not to sympathize with the young girl. Before she had met Nate, well... her life could have been very different.

        The tape ended and the persistent stab in her belly meant she couldn’t hang around any longer. She needed to find food right away. She wiped her hands tossing the wrapper to the floor. 

        “Huh” she mused as she gripped the bottom of the broken bed with her right hand, pulling and jerking it away from the doorway. She kept her left hand up, pistol trained on the doorway. “I’m really turning into a litterbug.”

        She thought about the roaches in the vault, the bloodbug from before, and as if on cue, a giant house fly buzzing angrily towards her. Dropping on one knee she fired off a shot, catching the fly square between the compound eyes. She jumped as the whole bug exploded, and a maggot shot into the frame a few inches from her head. The front of the larvae had been squished, but the back half was still wriggling furiously, driving itself further into the rotten wood. The thing must have been a good four inches when it had been whole.

         “Yep.” Nora’s lips went thin as she exhaled closing her eyes willing the nausea away while taking a step back. “Definitely not the worst kind.” 

         Opening her eyes she stiffly walked to her bag, and hoisted it over her shoulder. As she did so, a magazine slid from beneath it to slap onto the floor. 

        “Nice!” she picked it up reading the title “Self Defense Secrets. A part of the wasteland survival guide series.” Briefly thumbing through, she was glad to see there were dirty maneuvers and strategies  taught within. The kind that Nate would have been far to honorable to teach her, if he had even known them. But they seemed to be exactly the kind of thing this new world required.

         Placing it carefully into a pocket of the duffle as she walked onto the dilapidated porch, she had her head down and missed the shot of a second fly, its bloated body mere feet from her.

        As the maggot crashed into the back of her left shoulder, she reacted without thinking, slamming the bloatfly with the butt of her gun, knocking it into the wall beside her. It fell to her feet stunned, as she felt the bite of the maggot biting into her should, she stomped the insect. It didn’t explode, and she had to tromp on it several times before she was content it was dead.

        “Motherfucker!” She yelled, too mad to care about sound now as she reached back to pull the disgusting maggot out. She cursed a few times as her grip slipped on it’s slimy body. She dug in her nails and finally wrenched the parasite out, horrified to see that it had buried itself nearly a an inch and a half in. 

        “Ugh” she flicked it away. The adrenaline rush had curbed the sharpness of her hunger, but it was persistent. She looked back down at the bloatfly.  As she did, another maggot wriggled it’s way out of it to plop onto the splintered wood, squirming frantically.

       “So that’s a no.” She turned and headed off the porch. With her back to it she looked around to see if there were any more surprises. Utilizing a targeting program on her pipboy she was able to see there was an animal just down the hill from her. She couldn’t make it out on the road, through a copse of dead trees, but trusted the device to lead her. 

       Lifting up some of the dusty earth, she let it fall to gauge the wind direction. She knew bleeding as she was, people would just about be able to smell her coming let alone animals. 

       Watching it fall she grunted in annoyance, she wasn’t completely upwind, but mostly. She started making her away across the slope, when the beast came into view, drawing her up short.

        It was a cow that had two heads! She had seen animals like that before, but they didn’t often live long, and were sickly at best. This one however appeared to be well fed and quite strong, judging from all the trunks, suitcases and other storage containers piled high on its back.

        It was shortly after, a man strolled out with a self assured walk, carrying a rifle loosely in his grip. She couldn’t see his face through the darkness of his security helmet, but was certain his eyes missed nothing. He suddenly turned around and appeared to be speaking and gesturing to someone further down the hill out of sight. She took the opportunity to hop down a ledge behind an outcropping of rock.

        She held her pistol close to her chest and glanced through a crevice in the stones to watch the path. She was only feet from the road and they walked at a good pace. The first man was quickly hidden from her.

        A second man came into view, he was unarmed, with greasy black hair slicked back. He was as dirty as everyone else she had met so far, and had a slim mustache that did nothing to hid his thin lips. But he wore a lab coat. Could he be a doctor?

        She wanted to speak to them, and find out, but anyone could put on a coat. He too passed from her sight as she debated whether she should speak to them when the choice was taken from her.

        “Make a move, and I’ll end you wastelander.” A cold voice spoke just behind Nora. She swung around to see a woman similarly dressed with security armour as the first man. Just as he did, she too had a rifle, aimed right at Nora.

         She heard the cocking of a gun from the road. With an angry set to her jaw she lowered her pistol so it faced the earth, but refused to let it go. She would kill them before she went through that shit again.

         “Who are you?” Nora asked through gritted teeth. 

         “Doc Weathers!” Came the nasal reply as the self proclaimed doctor strolled around her cover into view. He glanced over her attempt at bandaging, then flicking his eyes the rock she had slid down, noticed the streak of blood she had left behind. He smiled predatorily when he took in the sight of her duffle.

        “Are you really a Doctor?

        He spread his hands wide and sarcastically replied. “Am I a Doctor? Let me show you my degree from the school of saving wise asses like you. I’m a positive institution in these parts. So you need help or what?” 

        His apparent desire to do business had relaxed the guards enough so that they were no longer directly pointing their weapons at her. The didn’t seem any less vigilante, and they never let their fingers stray from the trigger guards.

         “I’m hurt doc.”

         “Tell me your problems, I got solutions.” He knelt down in front of her as she allowed herself to relax enough to sit, still holding her pistol.

         “Took a few bad hits recently.” She was not going to go into detail with this man. “Got knocked around.” What an understatement.

         “Severe lacerations.” He commented to himself as he pried off the crusty makeshift bandage on her face.

         “Puncture wounds.” He listed as he gently pulled her shoulder forward to get a better look.

         He held her head below the jaw, feeling her glands while tilting her face side to side peering intently. “Muscle spasms in the eyes from high levels of stress…” He seemed distracted as he caught her gaze.

         It was broken as a slow trickle of blood found its way into her eyebrows dripping onto her cheek. "Yeah, lets get you fixed up.”

         Nora narrowed her eyes suspiciously. “What do you charge?”

         A corner of his mouth quirked up into a facsimile of a smile. He pointedly looked at her bag tucked behind her. “Well let’s see what you got.”

         With her free hand she pulled the bag into her lap and jerked the  zipper open. He pulled it apart, frowning when he saw the tools inside. “Meh” was all he said.

         Biting her lip, Nora placed her pistol on the ground and untied her chem bag. When that caused the guards to simply move off to give them some privacy, she resisted the urge to snatch it back up. Instead she dumped out the chems, retrieving the med-x and the rad-x. 

         “Now this is something. Oh and this is worth a few caps. Daddy-O, excellent.”

        “Wait,” she interrupted, “Caps?”

        “Yeah caps, you know, currency.”

        Reaching into her pocket she pulled out the caps she had taken off Dale, cursing herself for having thrown the ones from her earlier sodas away. She knew littering was bad! She tossed them down in front of the doctor. “Well, is it enough?”

         “I think so.” He reached inside his jacket and pulled out two syringes from a pocket inside. “This one,” he told her holding up a marine blue filled syringe, “Antibiotic, anti-venom, antitoxin, anti-parasitic.”

         She held her breath as he inserted the needle into her neck. Glad to see he had at least enough skill to hit the vein right away. “God, that feels like cement!” 

          He pulled the needle out holding pressure with his thumb for a few seconds. She couldn’t help notice that by this point, his assessment of her body no longer felt professional.

          “And this,”

          “Is a stimpak, yeah I know.” She said, wanting to be done with this man

          His smile became tight, but his hand no less steady as he applied it to the other side of her neck. Again he held pressure after removing the needle, and when removing his hand, Nora couldn’t be sure, but thought he had stroked her throat.

          He bent and retrieved the caps and most of her chems, leaving behind an inhaler looking device, and one that seemed to be attached to a hairspray can. “These cover the shots. Your back is totally fine. Now your face is closed up, but you are going to have a scar, ain’t no two ways about it.”

           “Can I get some food for those?” She asked pointing to the leftover drugs.

           He considered the drugs and then her. “I’ll tell you what. You give me that wedding ring, and those drugs, I’ll give you our food, and this.” He pulled out a stimpak and a packet of radaway. At the stricken look on her face, he added. ”Or…”

           “What do I get for just the drugs?” Nora’s voice sounded hollow.

           “Nothing.” She glanced up at him. He shrugged, “I don’t take them, and it wouldn’t be right for a doctor to sell them. So in a way, it’s like I’m doing you a favor.”

           She looked at her ring, she still had Nate’s. She was VERY hungry. “No.” she whispered.

           He hadn’t heard her, but the look on her face meant only one answer. “Then maybe there is something else you could do.” 

           She kept looking at her hands, but couldn’t help but notice, hearing him the guards had moved away so they were longer in view.

           “See you got a real nice throat, you show me how nice it can be, and I’ll let you keep the drugs, the food, and your ring.”

           Nora drew her hands up over her face, then forced them up painfully scratching through her hair. Her stomach chose that moment to do it’s best impression of a bullfrog. She exhaled forcefully. “Fine.”

           She truly didn’t want to do this, even less so when she saw the sick grin of triumph on the docs face. But she would have been a fool to turn an offer like that down. Pride was a wonderful thing, but intelligence was better. The doc had started to unbuckle his pants.

          “Hu-uh.” She scolded. “Let me see the food first.” He smile turned sheepish, her fingers inched towards her weapon. If he had no food and was going to try and pull this, she may need to take chances. Instead he turned away, calling the beast.

          “Idiot, get your ass over here. No I’m not at the tree. No, not the post. No, now you’ve turned around again. Argh! I’ll just go to you!” He dropped the drugs and jogged off.

          She took the opportunity to grab the chems and put them in her bag, they were hers now, one way or another. She pulled the duffle to her side and opened it hopeful there would be more than one meal’s worth for this deal

          Within a few minutes he was back with a surprisingly full armful of food, dumping them between her legs. There was purified water, cram, sugerbombs, and a few others. Digging through she smiled to see there were also some fancy lad snack cakes, those were her favorite. Her smile grew sad as she remembered Nate teasing her about her love of them, involving a scenerio similar to this.

          She grabbed all of it, making a mental list as she carefully packed it into her bag, so that the tools wouldn’t crush everything if she had to make a run for it. As she placed in the last gumdrop she once again heard the doc taking off his pants. He actually fully stepped out of them then dramatically undid his jackets bottom button while whipping it open and securing it back by placing both hands on his hips.

          He had a proud stance, but she really wasn’t sure why. Thinking maybe he was a grower and not a shower, she pulled the duffle aside and knelt in front of him, keeping her pistol within easy arms reach. She wasn’t overly concerned, as she couldn’t see the sense in fixing her then threatening her while she had a precious piece between teeth. But still, she needed it close.

          Glancing up, she saw the doc staring off into the distance, in what he must have thought was a heroic figure. She rolled her eyes and reached for his member. She found herself praying his dick wouldn’t be as unhygienic as his stained coat. As she stroked it few times, she found it wasn’t AS bad.

          She reached into her bag and pulled out a purified water, setting aside the snack cakes for later. If this was going in her throat, she was going to need to at least dilute it a bit first. She snapped open the lid with her teeth as she continued to stroke, feeling the blood start to fill  his cock. She had to hurry, when it was fully hard he would want what he had asked for, so she poured the water gently over the base of his shaft while pulling down and working the water all over, paying special attention around the head.

          He sucked his breath past his teeth appreciatively. She felt a surge of blood bring him to half stiffness. He began fidgeting his hips, so she sloshed out a bit more, and drank the rest of the can herself. She was careful to leave half a swallow of water, which she held in her cheek as she finally took him into her mouth.

           He moaned closing his eyes as she started to stimulate his half stiff member, enjoying the feeling of the cool water quickly heating up, and sloshing around in her mouth. He rocked back and forth on the balls of his feet causing her to need to grab his hips to stay with him. He was only about five or so inches when he was fully hard and she had no difficulty in swallowing him to the base. He barely could tickle her throat, even when her nose was squashed against his thick wiry pubic hair.

           She reached with one hand around the base and held him still, while bringing up her other to tug gently at his balls. She covered her top teeth with her lip, while sticking out her tongue, so she could lick at his testicles as she was bobbing her head.

          “Mhhhmmm.” Weathers groaned. “You love cock that much? Or- OH, UH, you just that grateful?”

          She was in truth using many tools in her arsenal, but simply because she wanted to be done. With that in mind, she pulled his sack backwards, while sliding a still wet finger into his ass.

          “What?” He cried “You can’t just! Ohhh!” his legs jerked as she found his spot and stroked it expertly. Pressing down while she went as far down on him as she could, she was rewarded with the feel of his hot cum spurtting into her throat. 

          ‘Now he makes me gag.’ She thought as the hot liquid thickly shot against her throat. She wanted to pull back, she didn’t mind swallowing, but preferred to be a little less body temperature when she did.

         In protest, the doc finally released his hips, securing her head, pulling it back for her to breath intermittently as he took his time stroking himself back to softness with the inside of her mouth. Finally he released her, eyes still closed, not realizing how close to death he had just been. 

         The moment he had grabbed her, she had grabbed her pistol. Now she placed into her belt rocking back onto her feet.

         He had finally opened his eyes and had the dopey ‘I just came face’. “Well That was-“

         “A business transaction. One that is now over.” Nora worked her mouth and spit the remaining bit of cum to the ground. Standing up, she grabbed her duffle, careful of which way she placed it on her back, and the snack cakes tearing it open. She didn’t look at the doc, until she heard the fly go up on his pants.

        “Thanks for the help doc.” She managed to sound neutral as she said it. ‘Pride won’t serve for survival,’ she thought.

        “Take better care of yourself in the future.” He almost sounded sincere as he said it.

        “I plan to.”

        Checking her pipboy she checked the map, finally with a destination in mind. She set off down the road the way the group had come from.

        She was going to need a lot of help if she was going to conquer the wasteland. If she was going to find those responsible for taking her son, she was going to need money.

        And if bottlecaps were the currency of the wasteland, then she was going to have to get some. Judging by the morals of those she had met so far, there is much she could get if she was ‘rich.’

        Like an army.

        Flipping through the radio stations on her pipboy she was relived to hear the jingle that used to play a least once a day on any channel on t.v. It was still there.

        She was going to Nuka-World.

 


	7. Chapter 7

          Staring across a large lake, Nora was conflicted. She was very filthy, but the persistent clicking of her pipboy’s Geiger counter was warning her away from the irradiated waters. She decided to walk around the edge of the lake in hopes of finding an area that didn’t set it off quite so badly.

           Skirting the edges, she hiked forward trying to keep all of her senses on alert.  She was able to make her way quickly and after about five minutes, caught site of some more bloat flies hovering over a shallow, sun filled pool just off the main lake.

          She slowly knelt down, reaching around to pull her rifle from the bag, careful to make no sudden movements as she didn’t seem to have attracted their attention yet. She shouldered her rifle, mourning again the loss of the scope. She lined up her first shot, steeling herself for how rapidly she would need to be to make the second. 

          She couldn’t keep the small satisfied grin when she saw the first fly explode as the loud crack echoed across the lake, the water making the sound reverberate loudly. By the time the second fly had located her and swung it’s body towards her, she had lined up and half exhaled, held it and fired. This time she didn’t even try to stop the grin that split her face from ear to ear at the site of the maggot strewn viscera. Finally she was getting ahead.

          Replacing her rifle in her bag, she jogged over to the pool, thrusting out her pipboy hopefully. Her smile fell as it actually increased it’s frantic ticking. She refused to allow this to affect her lifted spirit, and after adjusting the duffle straps, she continued on her way. 

          She guessed she was about a quarter of the way around the lake, and after checking her pipboy’s map, she realized she needed to start heading away from the lake. This did put a pin prick in her good mood, she did so want to bathe. She was beginning to itch, especially where she had waded through the river the day before. 

          There was a path up on her right, but seeing how well traveled it looked, she decided to start climbing up the steep embankment instead. There were a few thickets and stands of blasted dead trees to provide shade and cover for her.  As well as the empty, ruined remains of what appeared to be a red house. Oddly enough a dirty pink flamingo had survived the blast that had destroyed the home it had once lorded over.

          After she had climbed nearly to the top of the hill, more or less sneakily, only slipping twice and not totally onto her face, she turned to see a red factory of sorts across the way. There appeared to be activity, but judging by the people she had met so far, she would need to have a lot more ammo, and a lot more caps before she could try and meet up with anyone. 

          A friend would be nice too, but those seemed to be running in short supply. Her mouth turned down, and she felt a heavy sadness. She was used to having a network of people, for love and support. But this blasted land seemed to have killed kindness along with all the greenery.

          She pushed the feelings down, through sheer force of will. They were hopeless, and thus useless. ‘And besides, I’ve only met half a dozen people. Can’t really be sure of anything yet.’ She blinked away unshed tears, and thought again of the stealthboy she had picked up. How it could make someone invisible for a short time. And how the screwdriver had seemed to move on it’s own, maybe there were good people helping her. Well goodish. Not… terrible? She wasn’t sure if it was the comedown of her sugar rush, or these dark thoughts, but she was getting a headache. 

          It was then a movement caught her eye, breaking her from her musings. It seemed the nuclear war had actually opened a portal to hell, as she could now see what had to be a demon stalking around the lake to stop at the place she had taken her shots from to sniff the ground. It had the devils horns and stood about 7 feet tall. Each of its razor sharp teeth appeared to be larger than her thumbs, but what really made her heart stop was the things hands. To say they ended in claws would have been unfair, as the knifelike talons on each of the strong but slender fingers were too fearsome to hold the simple title of claws.

          It shook it’s leathery brown and black coat, whipping its thick tail back an forth, as it took in the smell of gunpowder the rifle always left behind.

          By now, Nora was already edging her way backwards over the bluff, willing herself and the crunching terrain to be as silent as possible. She was nearly to the top when the terrifying  creature sniffed its way to the entrails  and meat that had been left behind. She grimaced at the sight of it’s claws deliberately being scraped, and sharpened against the ground. Raising her hand to her mouth, she tried to cover the sound of her breathing. The monster was about 100 feet away, but she wasn’t convinced it couldn’t hear her. She wished she could do something about the pounding of her heart but slow movements backwards was all she would allow herself to focus on.

            The thing lapped up the flies in a few licks of it’s giant dripping tongue. As she was finally descending the other side of the bluff, it lifted it’s head to chew an especially large chunk, flicking  back it’s head to draw it further into it’s maw. It was at that moment, across the distance, it’s black eyes locked with hers.

          “No. No, no, no!” she whimpered, muffled behind her hand, as it stood higher sniffing her way. The last thing she saw as she finally descended out of it’s view, was it taking a few slow steps around the lake in, still peering in her direction. She immediately turned and flew down the other side of the hill.

          She saw a few rusted cars, blown back from a far off road most likely. They were far to eroded out to provide shelter so she flew past them. She whipped her pipboy up, thankful it was still on her map, and tried to see past the bouncing of her mad dash to anywhere she could take refuge.

          The Church! She was just up the hill from the very church that she and Nate had been married in. It had big thick stone walls, and had been built in the early 1900’s. If any buildings had been able to survive, surely it had!

          It was then a heart chilling roar echoed down the hill at her. She chanced a peek over her shoulder and saw the Deathclaw, the only name she could think of that described the horrid creature, standing atop the ridge. Arms splayed out to show off it’s massive 9 foot reach, and head jutting forward, it’s jaws spread impossibly wide.

          Nora whipped her head forward and pumped her legs as hard as she could, practically tearing at the air with her arms in frantic claws of her own. She could see the roof!

          She could hear the monster tearing down the hill after her as she leapt across a small gulley, Its pace clearly soon to outmatch hers. It would be close, but she could see the whole church now!

            She was barely able to register the two startled brahmin, just a little further down the hill before she threw herself through a blasted out window, rolling ungracefully onto the church floor, cursing as the bag crunched against her spine.

          The whole building seemed to shake as the clawed hand made it through the window to swipe at her, missing her by inches, but the rest of the beast was too big to fit through the stone window frames.

          Nora frantically looked around for something to hide behind, or something a little deadlier than her rifle. There were pews strewn about the floor, with some skeletons decorating the seats. She noticed some were oddly dressed in military wear. She again caught the sickly sweet scent and glancing up saw more of the brain like fungus adorning the wall. Her eyes were then drawn to the bright red front door. It was closed, but would be big enough for the Deathclaw to get through. The damn thing was made of wood! 

          Scrabbling back, her left boot connected with a metal plate, which rang out with a hollow echo. Looking down, she nearly wept in relief, it was a hatch. Nate had mentioned that sometimes the military would use civilian structures as facades for bunkers or stockpiles. Perhaps this was one of them.

          She had to move quickly, as she watched the arm retract and the creature began to stalk around the building looking for a way in. It would be at the flimsy door in seconds, so she threw back the hatch, and with a prayer dropped into the darkness below, pulling the door shut behind her with an ominous CLANG.

 


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Violence!

          Nora swallowed a shriek, the feeling of her stomach in her throat as she plummeted through the darkness. She quickly hit the bottom, about eight feet below. Her feet weren’t prepared and she tumbled onto her backside, managing to wrench her upper body to the side, saving herself from once again having her tools jammed against her bruised spine.

          Panting hard, she waited a few moments for her eyes to adjust to the weaker illumination of the tunnel. Surisingly, there were still working lights, dim though they were, showing a winding hallway composed from old brick. It clearly needed maintenance, as there were dirt patches where the stones had fallen away, and little trickles of dust from the ceiling here and there, but it seemed sound enough.

          Drawing herself up, she began to creep down the tunnel aware of every noise her boots made on the loose soil of the floor, grateful how the sound was swallowed by the wending of the path. After passing what must have been hydro and power pipes for the old church, and a few twists of the corridor, she saw ahead of her a construction light. This one had been well maintained and cast a bright shine into what appeared to be a small room. It’s construction appeared to be more of the hallway’s.

          This gave her pause, straining her ears she could sound what sounded like a motor, it had a familiar cadence she couldn’t quite place. Worse than that, she could hear the sound of drunken voices. There sounded like there was three, two women, and a man. They were laughing and joking loudly, muffled somewhat as if they were not quite in the room in front of her

          Staying in the shadows, behind the bright light she shrugged her duffle off her shoulders, trusting the blinding beacon to keep her hidden from anyone who might come around the corner to see her. She first pulled out her rifle, and had to fight the urge to slap herself, she had used her rounds on the damn flies, and still, hadn’t gotten a bath out of it!

          Pushing the rifle away, she instead drew her 10 mm. She then reached at her hip,inside her drug bag, pocketed the stimpak, untied it, and placed it into the duffel. She was about to zip her bag shut, when she saw the stealthboy. As the laughter became more raucous she figured ‘Now is as good a time as any.’ And pulled it out.

           It was at that moment, the nagging sound of the motor, and the gaseous smell of it’s exhaust, finally triggered a memory. It had to be a machine gun turret. She had seen them once when she had picked up Nate after his last tour of duty. They had worried her then, and she had asked Nate about them. Why they were there, what was it they could do. 

          He had told her that the war was heating up, that some of the wiser military commanders were setting them up in the unlikely chance that the war spilled back onto American soil. But not to worry, as they could drop a person within seconds, as long as they didn’t wear power armor. Seeing the large group protesters set up across from the base, Nora had wondered if that was all it was for.

           Shaking her head to bring her back to the present, she flicked on the stealthboy. She felt a tingle spread across her body causing a little shiver to run down her spine. She marveled for a moment at her hand in front of her face, there was only a small amount of shimmering blocking her view of the wall beyond where her hand aught to be. 

           Knowing that she only had an hour before her invisibility wore off, and as she had no idea what was ahead, she pressed forward, sticking to the walls to lessen noise and the shadows she was still casting. 

          It was only a few feet before she came to the end of a wall, peeking around it, she could see the turret just ahead of her, with a doorway up a flight of stairs on her right. Taking a deep breath, she slid around the corner of the wall to enter the room. The turret continued its scanning of the area uninterrupted.

          Nora let out a breath she didn’t realize she had been holding. The turret suddenly swung towards her direction, but didn’t arm its weapons. She froze mid-step, as it idled a for a few moments before returning to its searching mode.

          She realized that it must have a variety of sensors, which would of course include thermal. By letting air out of her mouth, she must have caused an unexplained heat signature. Keeping that in mind, she continued, breathing slowly, and only through her nose.

          Knowing the turret would need to be shut down, she approached the stairs. Judging from the dilapidation of this place, the computer should be there. That did mean she would have to go where the trio was, but as she neared, she could hear the slurring in their speech, and thought in her current invisible state, it would be preferable to the turret.

         Step by painstaking step she climbed the stairs easing her way onto each slat of refurbished wood, as close to the wall to prevent any creaking as she could. She was sure no one had ever taken so long to climb the seven steps to the doorway.

          Peeking in she could see a brick column separating the right and left of the  room. On the left side, was a desk with the terminal she had been hoping to find, on the right she could see the larger part of the room. It held a small dirty table littered with some more of the strange drugs Nora had been finding lately, a few beer bottles, and dirty ash trays also decorated the time worn surface. There also was a beat up, ancient looking cooler sitting atop of the corner of a few yellowed notes. She wrinkled her invisible nose at smell of stale smoke, spilled liquor, and what she could only guess was urine.

          Beyond that, was the trio she had been hearing on a dank yellow, striped couch with the occupants getting cozy and sharing a bottle of some dark amber liquid. They were sloshing it carelessly, while getting handsy with one another. 

          The man and woman on the outsides of the couch seemed to be focused on the woman in the middle. They both had similar markings on their faces, reminiscent of the lines she would see athletes don before intense bouts in the sun. The pair seemed well fed and well muscled, both with striking black hair. Their skin was clear, if a little pale, as they most likely, spent a good deal of their time in the tunnels.

          The woman in the middle was a pretty redhead, heavily freckled, tan, and clean of artificial markings. Although not as clean everywhere else too, she couldn’t help noting as the amount of flesh was already more than half of the woman. Her body in contrast to the others was so slight she seemed waifish, with what she had to guess was an a cup. Which quickly became a no cup as her bra was removed, revealing her nipples already taut from the attentions she was receiving.

          Not allowing herself to be further distracted, Nora snaked her way through the room, behind the concealing column, to the terminal. 

          She skidded back in shock at the site of another figure beside the desk, her boots scraping the loose soil of the floor.

          “What the fuck was that?” One of the females voices rang out.

          Nora stuck to the column like a lizard. She was frozen, but only with supreme will. The figure was a ladies mannequin smiling it’s eerie pre-war smile on her. It was so absurd and she was wound so tight, she had to fight the urge to laugh at the silliness of the unexpected sight. Who kept a mannequin in a glorified sewer?

           After a few more heartbeats, the man took another loud gulp of liquor and  nervously laughing said “The jet will make you jittery.”

          Waiting a few minutes more, until she was sure they were once again wrapped up in each other, she crept over in front of the terminal, grateful for the width of the column that kept the screen from their view. After gently tapping a few keys, wincing at every soft little click it made, she found the computer was locked.

            “Red doesn’t know we’re in here right?” The breathy redhead in the middle asked her wooing pair.

          The males voice, somewhat muffled, replied “Nah newbie, don’t worry none. She’s out trying ta offset the losses were getting from your bosses.” He drunkenly giggled over his rhyme.

           Nora knelt comfortably in front of the terminal, taking her time to quietly bring up the correct menus for a password reset.

          “Ex-bosses!” Exclaimed the redhead, the booze causing her panic to seep into her voice.

           “Ex-bosses,” soothed  the dark haired woman. “Else how could you have scored us all this hooch?”

          Nora finally had the reset menu she was looking for, and begin trying different codes to gain entry. She strained her ears to see if the minute sounds of the keyboard would interrupt the trio, but they seemed far to consumed with each other so far.

          “Ya’ know I had no idea my new gang would be this, uh, accommodating.” Purred the red, making little squeaking noises as the sound of sucking flesh filled the small chamber.

           Trying a few new passwords, Nora wasn’t getting any closer, but knew patience would win the day. She was no stranger to hacking terminals, as she found herself occasionally needing to bend the rules for a case here and there. Purely to ensure the pursuit of righteous justice of course.

          “Well, gang hopping ain’t as strange as you think. What you think? Gotta be a third of our crew started somewhere else.” The dark haired woman cooed.

           The man snorted, “Yeah, but we do have a real good setup here.” 

          The computer locked her out, so she rocked back on her heels to wait to try again.

          “Yeah, we had about half ours come from piss poor excuses of outfits. But then, we never got as big as you. And the boss had a way of, let’s just say, initiating them. To, ya know, make sure they were actually loyal. Bout three in ten survived” The redheads voice had become low and thick with desire, as the sounds of more clothing hitting the floor echoed about.

           Nora again tried the keyboard, being more focused on keeping the frustration at bay as she was soon locked out again.

          “ Well you’ve seen the bodies, you know what we do to OUR enemies. But we’re really about being welcoming, it makes our new friends, well… more friendly. Like with this booze. And say like, some more information.” The man’s voice hoarsely said. There was a great deal of protesting squeaks and groans from the couch, as if there was a lot if moving around on it.

           “I’ve already told you-“ The reds voice transitioned into a moan as the unmistakable sound of sex began.

            The dark haired woman spoke, punctuating her words with loud sloppy kisses. “Yes darl, you’ve told us about their defenses. And their numbers. But what we want. What we NEED!” This kiss elicited a loud response. “Is to know about the sister.”

          Nora smiled tightly as she finally had entry to the terminal. She saw a variety of personal entries, but went straight for the command to disarm the turret just outside. The heard the pitch of the turret deepen as it went in to standby mode. 

          By now the sounds of wet flesh and harsh breathing filled the earthen chamber so the trio didn’t notice. She slowly backed up to the column and peeked around. It seemed more and more unlikely to her that she would be able to leave this scum behind.

          She could feel the blood rush to her face, and a few other places at the sight before her. The man was on his knees, on the floor and was pounding away at the redhead. She was mostly laying down against the couch, her knees linked over his elbows as he used them to drive into her.

           The dark haired woman was perched over her on her knees, bracing her right arm against the back of the couch allowing her left to roam free over the woman.  She leaned in and kissed the redhead deeply, gripping the back of her head possessively. “So? When did you last see the sister?”

          “OH! It’s been, UH, weeks, I guess? Oh God you fuck me so GOOD!”

          “How. Many. Weeks?” The man growled thrusting deeply with each word.

           Looking around, Nora realized if their sex was this loud, her 10 mm would be heard for miles. She reached in her boot and pulled out the knife. She narrowed her eyes as she saw the dark haired woman lean forward so her breast was in the red heads mouth and pulled her own knife off a small dresser behind the couch.

          “Ttttt…. Two weeks.” The waif stuttered, once the breast had been removed from her mouth. “It was two weeeeeks,” she moaned, “Two weeks for sure!”

          “Thanks Darlene!” the dark haired woman smiled. She lowered her head and captured her lips. The redheads eyes closed and in that moment, her throat was swiftly and deeply cut.

          Darlene tried to reach for her throat, in a useless attempt to stem the torrent of blood leaking down her chest. But the dark haired woman held them pinned above her head against the couch.

          The man’s response to the ordeal was to pull out of Darlene, and to instead, began thrusting instead in the dark haired woman’s snatch.

           The sight of the blood spurting onto to the lot of them was too much for Nora, and she hid again behind the column her own breath being muffled against the back of her hand. Not that she thought the would have been able to hear her over the horrible gurgling the dying woman was making.

          This was it. 

          This was the world now. 

          Nothing but tribes, and raiders.

          Users and takers. 

          Blackmailers, and blackhearts. 

          There was no decency, there was no honor. No trust.

          Just horror, and betrayals. Deceptions and violence. 

          ‘Fine,’ she thought, as she did her best to harden her heart. ‘If this is going to be what it takes.’  Taking a deep breath, she stood up and slid around to the far side of the column. The now pair, were facing away from her and far to engaged in their frantic thrusting to notice the soft sounds of her boots as she climbed atop the table.

          Just as she reached for the mans head with her left hand, he jerked it back as he shouted; “I’m cumming!”

          He pulled out his swollen cock, as she grabbed his hair. Ejaculate and blood sprayed onto the woman’s back, as Nora made her best impression of a pez dispenser. He jerked and rolled his eyes back, but was to weak to do much but feebly reach up before he fell limply onto the floor.

          “What the fuck?” The remaining raider shrieked, before she too felt the yank of  Nora’s grip in her hair, then the cold bite against her neck, swiftly followed by the hot feel of her lifeblood running down her chest. 

          She dropped the dying woman, and feeling her own knees go weak, turned and sat on the edge of the table, knocking aside a bottle.

          She watched as it slowly made it’s way across the uneven floor. The sound of the steady drip of her knife, and the gritty clinking of the bottle thundered in her ears. She couldn’t process what she had done. She could only watch through a haze of disbelief as the bottle continued on its journey to roll out the door and crash to the floor below. The noise spurred her back to her feet. She knew she should check for more enemies, or more weapons. The still group behind her didn’t appear to have brought theirs with them.

           Grabbing up a few choice pieces of the armor she saw , she quickly assessed the rest of the room. She emptied the cooler of food and chems, and found nothing of value in the desk. Making her way around the pile of corpses, with their still expanding puddle of blood, she was grimly surprised to find a fat man launcher with one nuke in it behind the couch. Using the nuclear weapon underground would have been suicide, but it would be enough for that deathclaw that had chased her down here.

          Hefting it’s weight up to her shoulder she gave the weapon a once over, re-familiarizing  herself with its operation. Grunting at the well oiled, dry fire it made she headed for the door. She was perversely glad that she had told Nate the only way she would tolerate his being shipped off AGAIN, was if she could fire a few of these babies off at the range.

            She estimated it had been fifteen minutes since she had turned invisible, so she could stress out about what she had done later. She made her way to the steps, and stumbled down them. Partially because she was trembling, and partially because she couldn’t see her feet. She quickly retrieved her duffle, surprised when it too became invisible once she had it secured to her back.

          She passed the inactive turret and made her way through the winding maze until the hall turned into a much more modern construction. She saw ahead of her a large set of security doors, after peeking through, it appeared empty, so she cautiously crept in.

          While the room was stuffed with cargo containers, there were a few obviously well traveled paths through the room. She saw a few shelves stuffed with food and other assorted goodies. Beyond them was a twin set of security doors to the ones she had just passed through. Turning she could see a third smaller door leading to another hallway made of the same brick as the one she had come from. 

            She walked over to the older door and slowly eased it shut. Then making her way back towards the shelves, she paused spying another terminal. She eased her way around the shelves to the computer. Getting a glance down the hallway she could see it stretched on out of sight, and the soft murmur of voices echoed back towards her.

            Reaching for the keys, she was much faster with this one, being less worried about the noise. Within a minute, she had it unlocked, and quickly set the door in front of her to close. She bit her lip as the began to swing, but they must have been recently maintained as they shut with barely a sound.

           Turning back she threw the duffle on the floor, pulling it open she swept her arms across each of the shelves, dumping it’s contents into them. She grunted in frustration as the food wouldn’t all fit, so she dropped most of the tools onto the shelves. She then traded out her chest plate and her right arm bracer, piling them onto the floor.

           It was then, as she was finally able to force the zipper of her bag closed, the murmured voices began to approach. Rapidly they came down the hallway being alerted by the sight of the closed door. 

          Kneeling down, Nora pulled her bag in tight to her back and stealthily began to go back the way she had come. She was nearly back through the first set of security doors when she heard a small clatter behind her.

          “Take that fuckers!” A woman’s voice screeched maniacally.

          Turning, Nora saw a grenade rolling across the floor. The bitch had shoved it through a hole in the screen of the doors. Not even sparing the time to curse, she clapped her hands over her ears and dove into the hall before her. She had almost hit the ground when the grenade went off, blasting stinging bits of shrapnel past her. She grunted feeling a shard of… something, bury itself into her left thigh.

          “You guys!” The screeching woman continued, her voice sounding almost underwater to Nora’s ears. “Cut around and get in the other way!”

           Pulling herself up, Nora winced at the pain in her leg. It hurt a hell of a lot, but the piece had gone in at such and angle, it had sheared some skin before being stopped shallowly in the meat of her leg. She could use it for now, so she did, hobbling her way back.

          It wasn’t long before she was puffing and panting, wishing she could use her stimpak on her leg. She could practically hear her father’s voice in her head. ‘Stimpak 101, if you need something healed, you gotta clear it out first. Or else your likely to die of infection or lead poisoning.’

          Emerging into the first room she had entered, she dropped the bag and the fat man at the entrance to the corridor she would head down and scrambled as quickly as she was able back up the stairs. Within a few taps of the unlocked keyboard, she was able to reset the turret to cover her back.

          Huffing dramatically she, grasped her heavy items, and continued her staggering trek. By now, the shouting sounded like they had made to the store room. In a near blind panic, she stumbled off the walls around a final corner to see the ladder before her. Raising her hand to ensure she was still invisible, she started ascending the ladder.

           Estimating it had been 45 minutes since she had first fallen in, she prayed as she rose, that the Deathclaw had gotten bored and left, or at least wasn’t in the church itself. As she heard the repeating thunder of the turret, she pushed open the metal plate and stuck her head out.

           Glancing around, the church appeared empty. The flimsy red door had been ripped off its hinges, and the pews seemed to have been knocked around. As the distant rumble of the turret stopped, Nora pulled herself over the lip and crawled in behind a pew, her energy nearly spent.

           Hoping against hope, that the Raiders chasing her would think she had left, Nora pulled out Nate’s ring and clutched it fiercely. It was then she finally drew her eyes up, and she couldn’t help mouthing ‘FUCK!’

          The Deathclaw hadn’t left it all, it had been waiting for her in the rafters of the church. It was blinking it’s eyes sleepily in a sunbeam trickling down through the decayed roof. She saw its eyes light on the now open hatch she had just crawled through.

            The shouting became more severe, and she watched in horror, her fat man forgotten, as the Deathclaw quietly coiled itself for attack, hands poised for striking, while keeping balance with its thick tail and clawed feet. Within seconds it got it chance as a masked head poked from the hole.    

           With one swipe of its hand, the Deathclaw sent the head flying through the very window Nora had left in through. Tilting it’s head back it let out a triumphant roar, then leapt down swiping madly in the hole, trying to jam it’s bulk through the rusted metal, growling and howling all the while.     

          Nora huddled in a small ball, trying so hard to not exist as the sounds of screams and gunfire made their way into the din. She squeezed her eyes shut and covered her ears whimpering, “Please, please please.” She couldn’t have said what she was asking for, or whom she was asking it of, but couldn’t seem to stop herself.

          After an eternal minute  everything went deathly quiet.

          After another minute, she relaxed her hands away from her ears.

          And after a third, she opened her eyes.

           The Deathclaw was still, blocking the entry to the hatch with its barrel chest. Nearly the entire top half of the thing had made it through by widening the hole.

            When she was convinced it truly wasn’t breathing, she allowed herself to sit up. A glance at her shaking knees showed she was visible again.

          Allowing herself time to get her breathing back to normal, and her trembling to be less severe, she stood cautiously,  still being careful to keep the pew in between her and the hulking corpse. Picking her way through the debris, she kept an eye on the body and was nearly out the door, when she heard a muffled voice from in the hole.

          It spoke a bit more, and then the dead body twitched a shoulder.

          “Nope!” Nora said as she heard what sounded suspiciously like the same sentiment from the hole.

           She turned and as quick as she could, got the hell out of Dodge. 

 


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nora makes a friend!

          “Shit!” Nora hissed as she probed her leg, her fingers coming away sticky with blood. She twisted her thigh around to examine the wound the best she could in the shade of the broken overpass she huddled beneath. A nearby mongrel, burnt and sickly appearing, looked up from it’s feast of the haunches of a Brahmin nearby. She stared daggers at the mutt, as it licked it’s  bloody chops considering her. After a slight huff of disapproval, it bent it’s head again to it’s grisly dinner.

          “That’s what I thought!” she murmured turning again to her own task. The shrapnel had sheared a three inch gash up the back of her left thigh. It seemed to be a metal splinter, but had come at her at an angle so it was barely beneath the surface of her skin. Digging around her duffle, she found a pair of needle nose pliers she hadn’t thrown away. She grabbed a nearby stick and grit it between her teeth. 

          While the nearby torn up corpse of the cow would be more appealing to most predators than she should be, she didn’t want to risk attracting them with her pained cries. The dog seemed content enough with the carrion, but some animals seemed to prefer only living meat. 

          The front half of the Brahmin was further up the hill, it’s body still slowly leaking blood down the sunbaked slope. It seemed impossibly far away considering it had to weigh nearly 200 pounds on it’s own. She figured the dog hadn’t killed it. No, judging by the state of it, the Deathclaw had killed it and then come back to wait for her.

          She smiled grimly around the dried limb as she steeled herself to pull out the shrapnel. “I’m lucky like that.” Then plunged the slender tips into her flesh, grunting and clenching her teeth so hard she thought she would bite straight through the stick. Within a few attempts, she had the sliver firmly secured in the pliers grip. She was tempted to simply yank it out, but made herself pull slowly so as not to break it and have to go back in. Seeing the debris finally clear her leg, still dripping with blood, she flicked it aside, and dropped the pliers into her lap. Taking a deep breath she poked and prodded the wound some more to ensure she was clear. Satisfied there would be nothing stuck still inside, she spat the stick out, breathing hard as she watched it tumble and bounce down the hill before her.

           She pulled out her chem bag and shook out the med-x, considering it’s volume in the light as she fumbled for the stimpak. As her fingers wrapped around it she set the med-x down, trying her best to remember the dosage’s effects.  She injected the stimpak near the worst of the hole in her leg, the cool liquid comfortably making her leg tingle. 

          She ached all over, and while she was beginning to heal, it would take a while before the muscle was totally repaired, and she couldn’t afford to slow down now. She held up the med-x and gave it a few flicks of her fingers to get force all the air to the top of the syringe. She depressed the plunger just until she saw a few drops of the medicine break free. She once again hauled her leg around and injected about half of the dose. She figured that would be enough to keep her going, but not enough to put her on her ass.

          Closing her eyes, she leaned her head back against the cool concrete as she felt the combined medicine’s do their work. It was then she heard a little yip, opening her eyes, she saw the mongrel had a little pup with it. It’s body had the same burned, mangy look to it, but was tumbling around happy looking enough, with a full fat belly.

          She couldn’t help the little smile as she watched the pup try to initiate play with its parent, snapping at it’s tail and climbing on the  Brahmins legs so as to launch itself on it’s mother’s back. With a giant sigh the older mutt grabbed the precocious pup by the scruff and tossed it gently, so it somersaulted down the hill a bit. Miffed, the puppy snorted and layed down in the shade of a nearby rock jutting from the ground.

          Feeling her light headedness subside, Nora pulled out the tape she had taken, and closed up the hole in her suit as best as she could, grateful the material was at least still mostly there. Then she placed the rest of her belongings back into her bag, and pulled out her baton before zipping it closed. She made sure the mutt could hear her, keeping half on eye on it. She figured the thing would just let her leave if she didn’t pose a threat to it or it’s pup. She secured the bag, and drew her feet beneath her, the gritty nose of pebbles and dirt against the concrete serving a warning for her imminent departure. 

         The mongrel watched her, at full alert, but not making a move her way. It was so focused on her, it missed the sound of the molerat breaking through the soil behind it, until it was to late. The molerat had enough momentum that it was practically on the dogs back snapping and gnashing, nearly all of it’s bites connecting and drawing so much blood. 

          Nora was standing now, unsure as to what to do. Both animals seemed likely to try to kill her, so maybe the best course of action would be to leave while they were distracted. By now the dog had flipped the molerat off it’s back, after feinting at it a few times, the mutt was able to get under it’s guard and tear the rats throat out. It twitched and spasmed weakly, still making it’s horrible screeching noises that set Nora’s teeth on edge.

          She watched as the wounded dog started limping it’s way over to it’s young, head drooping and bleeding heavily. The pup was scampering over and they were almost reunited when a second molerat burst out between them. The puppy yelped, turning to flee, as the molerat shook it’s head to clear the dust cloud it had created when it had exploded out of the loose soil. It locked on to the pup and began to give chase as the parent desperately tried to reach the attacker with rapidly failing strength. It stumbled heavily, and lost it’s footing, snarling fiercely. It seemed it was trying to do with sound what it could no longer do with body.

           The molerat had almost reached the pup, its horrible teeth gnashing wildly, as the pup yelped and screamed. The molerat had almost reached the puppy’s tail, one more stride and it would have it, when Nora’s foot connected with the molerat’s midsection. She kicked as hard as she could, like she had when the family would play thanksgiving football, and was relived to see the thing go flying from the force of her running strike.

          Hearing the pup still screaming, she saw red, and angrily whipped her baton to extend it. With five steps, she made it to her quarry, stunned and gasping in the dirt. “Not again!” she shrieked as she struck a backhanded blow across the hideous head of the mutated freak. The creature seemed to have stopped breathing.

          “DON’T!” She struck again, it could be playing possum. She thought it looked like a molerat, but who knew what it’s pedigree is.

          “HURT!” Again she lashed out not content it was dead.

          “BABIES!” For the final blow, she gripped both hands around the baton, completely caving the offending skull in.

         She stood over her kill, and turned, being on the alert for more of the little fuckers to come erupting out. When none appeared, and her ragged breathing had returned to normal, she looked over at the mongrel. The pup had run back to it by now, and it was still crying as it’s parent licked it, searching for wounds. Finding none, it layed it’s head down protectively over the puppy as it curled into it’s mothers chest.

           She approached the pair cautiously “This is a bad idea,” she spoke softly and comfortingly. “You’re probably going to bite me.” She was closing the distance quietly lowering her body to seem less threatening. The dog watched her, ears trained as it kept having to blink away blood on the left side of it’s head. Even as she watched, it curled it’s face moreover the pup.

          When she was scooting a few inches at a time a mere three feet away, it finally lifted it’s head and locked eyes with her. She stopped approaching, but was encouraged that it wasn’t growling. “I know honey, you DO have big teeth.” Another few inches, “Yes, you, are, a, good, momma, aren’t, you?” A few more inches, and the watchful glare actually seemed to soften. 

          Getting a better look at the mutt, her heart broke.  She had seen abused animals before, but this was a whole new level of horrific. There was not a single strand of fur left on the dog. It’s ears had been eaten almost completely away, whether from disease, predators or just the ever present radiation, she wasn’t sure. It’s lips had had mostly disappeared the same route. It was lean, but didn’t actually appear emaciated. Each of it’s ropey muscles was uncomfortably apparent under it’s pockmarked skin.

          The puppy, however appeared to be in somewhat better condition, while it’s fur seemed eaten by mange, it still had it’s floppy, triangular ears and all of it’s slobbery little lips. 

          Nora reached her arm slowly up for the dog to smell, presenting the back of her hand. It slowly craned it’s neck forward. Giving her a few sniffs, Nora could have sworn it twitched its tail, even if it was just a bit. Then she watched the light go out of it’s eyes, and it’s head lower for one final time over it’s puppies trembling form. 

          She sat back, no question in her mind about what to do next, as the pup realized what had happened. It mourned nosily, trying to push itself further under it’s mothers chin, it’s yelping increasing as the fidgeting caused the dog to fall sideways off of it. She reached up and loosened the leather straps on the front of her chest plate as far as they would go, while tightening up the bottom. This created a little pouch on the front of her chest, one that should be big enough for the puppy.

          She then knelt forward and gently scooped the pup up. It was telling how distraught that it was, the it allowed her to. After a few gentle strokes down it’s back and it even curled into her for comfort. She held it under her chin, it placed a little kiss on her neck. Each whimper it emitted burrowing deeper into her heart.

          “I’ll protect you with my life!” she quietly, but intensely, vowed to the fragile little life in her hands, and gingerly placed it into the carrier she had made for it. As she was tucking it’s legs more securely and its whines devolved to little hiccups, she noticed a spot just above the base of it’s tail with a stubborn bit of fur still clinging on.

           Climbing to her feet, she scratched the fur. “C’mon fuzzbutt, we got to go.”

   

                                                                                 *****

 

          Cresting a hill, Nora was relieved to finally see the timeworn pair of giant red Nuka bottles signaling the transit center to Nuka world.  It was down a blasted hill, with a few rusted out vehicles along the road that led up to the gates. Spying a few copses of trees, she started heading down the rocky slope, picking her feet up carefully so as not to let her boots and heavy bags echo and give her position away. She was glad of the caution, when the surrounding hills bounced back the voices of a heavily armored group.          

          She settled behind a thick bush, in the shade of the towering bottles. Peering through the branches, she shrugged off her bag and the strap for the fatman onto the ground beside her. She then gently placed the puppy beside her hoping it wouldn’t want to run off. It stumbled around for a few paces, yawning and stretching, before stopping to squat.

          “Guess that mean you’re a girl, huh?” She asked as the puppy turned her way after finishing it’s business. It considered her for a moment, then looked around. It seemed that Nora was the better option, so it came back to her and slumped against her leg panting lightly.

           Satisfied the pup would stay put, she focused all her attention on the group stationed almost exactly center of the two parking garages, watching as two more joined the group from within them. One of the new arrivals was an assaultron robot, that wouldn’t be good if they weren’t friendly. Remembering the fevered glee Nate had explained how they would be key in turning the war, she had to swallow a lump of fear threatening to choke her. 

          She could almost make out what the group was saying. Catching a stray word hear and there made her stomach sink. Death threats about disobedience were not a great first start. She decided to wait a bit longer, when she saw a ragged dressed man heading from a road leading from a shattered overpass. 

          He appeared to be unarmed, walking with a jaunt in his step. His bouncing gait causing the cloud of salt and pepper hair to flit around his head in it’s greasy locks. He had a tanned, lined face, but looked younger due to a somewhat vacant expression.

          He tried hailing the group, waving his arms non-threateningly. “Hey I’m-“  Immediately he had to duck down to try and hide from the barrage of gunfire targeted at him. They had missed, but not by much. He reached down by his side, and wrapped his hands around…. Nothing. 

            “What the-?” Nora mouthed, beyond confused by his actions. She could only continue to watch, stunned as he mimed pulling a pin on a grenade, tossed it, then cupped his hands around his mouth to whistle it’s descent and subsequent explosion. 

          He then turned and appeared to get astride a motorcycle. It was confirmed when he made the sound of a motor trying to overturn. Just as he triumphantly revved and made the motor roar, his body was slammed into by about ten different calibers of lead.

          She slowly unzipped her bag and pulled out the mini-nuke.

          The armored group laughed at the fallen man, coming together to try and get a better look at the lunatic.

          “See!” She whispered to her new friend, as she hefted the fatman onto her shoulder. 

          “This is why…” She loaded the weapon. 

          “You don’t…” she brought the sight up to her eye, and brought her index finger from the safety to the trigger. 

          “Group up!” She spat out as she fired. The force of the weapon shocking her upper body, despite her best remembrance of the proper firing position. She would apparently need more practice. 

           While she was tempted to try and glimpse the last looks of the murderous gang, instead she sensibly spun around, placing her hands over her and the puppy’s eyes, seconds before the true whistling stopped, and a shockwave blasted by her, followed by a hot wind.

             After a few hot, deathly quiet moments, the puppy wriggled in her lap wanting to be let free. She let it tumble down her legs. Looking at the harbinger of destruction in her hand, and mentally calculating how many people she had just killed nearly caused to drop the weapon.

           She tightened her grip, refusing to gloss this over. It was war now. It would be damn near the whole world against her. And Fuzzbutt.

           This was a victory, but she decided to leave the fatman inside the statue she was hiding behind. It had been useful, but without the guarantee of additional mini-nukes, she found the thing too heavy and cumbersome.  

            After that, she pulled out the rad-x, and some purified water. She was sweating from the days heat, and the pup was panting more noticeably now. Taking the water, she used her knife to cut off the top of the can. The pup wagged it’s tail excitedly.

           “Hold on Fuzzbutt. I want to try something.” Nora then took a few off the rad-x out of the bottle, and snapped them open over the water. Using her knife to stir the mixture, and tried a sip, being wary of the sharp metal lip. “Well that tastes like crap. But, it is wet. “ She took another swallow, leaving about half the can

          She lowered the can for her new friend, carefully lining the edges with her fingers so the enthusiastic puppy wouldn’t hurt it’s face. She was glad she did when the pup almost dove into the can, causing it to immediately retract its head back out shaking and snorting water out of it’s nose.

          “Dumbass.” She couldn’t help but laughing, as the puppy came back, much more polite and waited for Nora to tip the contents towards her. 

           Fuzzbutt wagged her tail, finishing nearly all the rest of the water before sitting back to watch Nora, as she chucked the can aside. She grabbed her bag, and tightened the straps back up on her chest plate, reasonably sure the puppy would follow. 

          She picked her was across the broken concrete, trying her best to ignore the pieces of people here and there. Glancing over her shoulder, she saw the pup making it’s rambling way to her, stopping to sniff at things, and squat about ten more times.

      She passed by the garages still on alert, but feeling the kind of high that only firing a mini-nuke could bring. Combined with the feeling of justice, was leaving a bit of an arrogant swagger to her step.

         That was until she reached the top of the subway steps. There was a body, twisted unnaturally barring her way. She gagged at the sight of it. Turning away, she mentally scolded herself taking a deep breath. ‘Think about what’s important, the rest doesn’t matter.’

            Feeling the sun beating down on her, she wiped the sweat off her face and forced herself to look at the corpse once again, refusing to see it as a person any longer. Just potential loot. The army fatigues were certainly appealing, even if the looked much to large for her. The vault suit she was wearing was certainly well fitting, and was good at both cooling and warmth, but was a bit to close to the skin tight side for her to be really comfortable walking around in.

           The gas mask had the double appeal of concealment, and radiation protection, so she donned it as well as the fatigues.  Leaving the vault suit on beneath it, she kept her breastplate, but changed out her gauntlets and added the leg armor. 

           By now Fuzzbutt had wandered up the steps, and had already grown bored of watching her get changed, and headed around to the ladies bathroom. Nora followed her, just in time to watch a small, (at least in comparison to those she had seen on the vault,) radroach come racing out from beneath a stall.  It charged headlong at the mutt only to have it’s head promptly bit off.

           “Good job!” Nora exclaimed bending down to rub the puppy’s back gently. She was rewarded with furious tail wagging and a few spins of delight. “Let’s go! Yes! This Way!” Nora called as she started to head out of the room. 

           She stopped short when she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror. She couldn’t see one thing she recognized about herself. Her build seemed bulkier, and her stature taller. She wouldn’t have been able to guess her gender with the thick material laying unflatteringly across her chest. That suited her just fine. She couldn’t imagine wanting that sort of attention anytime soon, and definitely not en masse.

           Stepping out of the bathroom, she hopped lightly over the dead mans stripped body, and headed down the stairs. Touching the pistol she had placed in one of her many voluminous pockets, she took her time on each step, approaching a double se of doors to the transit center proper.

         Making her way to the bottom, she pulled out her pistol, ready to yank open the door, when a sad yip made her turn back. Fuzzbutt seemed very unsure about the escalator steps. Nora sighed, training would have to wait, she thought as she headed up, grabbed the pup and deposited it at the bottom of the escalator. Fuzzbutt wagged her tail happily, and followed Nora through the red doors.

            

 


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And so it begins...

          Emerging through the dirty crimson double doors into the transit station proper, Nora was greeted with the Nuka-World jingle merrily crackling throughout the speaker system. As her eyes adjusted to the dimmer light, she saw most of it was cast by a fire barrel directly ahead of her. Beyond was a mostly intact train, having survived the bits of ceiling debris that had fallen; like the collapsed pillar by the barrel. Just in front of it sat a haggard looking man clutching his stomach. 

           He had on light leg armor, but only wore a t-shirt and button up top. His head was bare, allowing mousy brown hair to touch his shoulders. Behind a thick growth of stubble, that was not quite yet a beard, he grimaced in pain. She could see his face was covered in a myriad of bruises. Some appeared fresh, while others; like the lightning shaped scar coming down his right eyebrow, seemed nearly healed. Spotting her, he moaned “Jesus. Shit. They’re going to die.”

           Her first impulse was to rush to the man’s side, she even took a half a step before stopping short. This could be a trap. 

          He moaned again, looking at her piteously. She took a few steps closer to him, cursing her bleeding heart. ‘God I hope I don’t regret this.’

          “What happened to you?” She cautiously asked, trying to peer into the darker corners of the station. It didn’t look like anyone was hiding.

         “Raiders, that’s what.” He answered in a weak reedy voice.

           ‘I knew it!’ She thought, as she craned on her toes to peek into the train. It was empty too. It really was just the two of them. She relaxed slightly, keeping her gun un-holstered, but no longer aiming it.

           “Those bastards have my family.” He continued, finally having her full attention. “You… you gotta help me. Please.” He begged. She knelt in front of him as he pulled his hand away from his stomach, to grimace at his palm before clutching his midsection once more.

           “Are you okay?” She asked saddened by the knowledge that she had no stimpaks to give him.

           “Hell, I’ve seen better days, but it’s my family I’m really worried about. Once those raiders realize I’m gone…” He coughed weakly, the strain of conversation itself appearing to wear the man out. “I don’t even want to think about what they’ll do to them. God you’ve got to help me.”

          “Tell me what happened.” By now she knew she would do whatever she could to help this man. Maybe, if she reunited enough troubled families, Karma would help her with her own.

          “My family and I ran into some traders a while back…” He shifted back more comfortably against the pillar, never releasing his stomach.

          ‘Traitors?’ Nora wondered.

         “Told us they knew a safe settlement...” His tone leading her to believe a safe place was as rare as a unicorn fart. “At Nuka-World. But when we got there…. Found out they were Raiders the whole time, just stringing us along.” He looked away from her bowing his head in shame.

          “I managed to escape, but my wife and son are still back there. I wanted to get some help and go back for them, but didn’t count on taking a bullet.” He screwed his eyes painfully.

           “How did you manage to escape?” Nora hated the lurking suspicion in the back of her mind.

          “There’s not many of them. Four maybe? Five? And with the amount of jet they were doing to celebrate, it was easy.”  A wave of pain seemed to pass over him as he scratched at the ground, and grabbed his faded plaid shirt in a death grip.

          By now Fuzzbutt had grown tired of sniffing around the door, and had made her way over to the wounded man. She sniffed at him. Evidently finding him distasteful, she let out small bark, and promptly turned away and pointedly squatted by his boots. She then gamboled off to left side of the platform, where there were still some benches standing. She found a large pile of trash there, and happily began to dig, sniff, and roll her way through it. 

          The pain seeming to have passed for the moment, the man continued, “I picked the lock on the cage they had me in, but one of them came barreling in before I was able to free my wife and son. My wife, Lisa, told me to run, so I did. Now I just hope it’s not to late to save them.”    

           She huffed venomously, “That’s what trust gets you out here.”

          “Sometime hope kicks you while you’re down. But sometime… it lends you a hand.”

          She felt ashamed for having been so bitter. This man was needing to trust her, and she wasn’t exactly proving herself as reliable so far.

          “You’re here for a reason. You’ve got to be.” The hope and entreaty in his voice pulling at her. “I turned on a transmitter here, hoping someone would come. I didn’t think it’s work, but here you are.”

           ‘That actually IS really good timing. Maybe these Raiders, or Traitors or whatever have something to do with Shaun.’ The thought that she might be making a true step forward giving her a warm bubble of excitement in her chest. ‘I might even find him there.’

           “It’s gotta be a sign, right?” he asked bringing her back to his problems. “So please, I’m begging you. They’re running out of time.” He appraised her ill-fitting armor and bulky bag. “If not for them, do it for the caps. You bring them back safe, I can pay you. I swear.”

           Her first thought was to outright refuse the payment. But then she thought how she would gladly pay someone to help find her son. She decided to accept the promise of payment now, but would be sure it was a fair amount when they family would be back together. There was no doubt in her mind that they would be. She WOULD save them. She had to. 

          “What about you?” She set her bag down, already feeling the buzz of purpose in her mind.

          “Just leave me. My wife and kid are all that matter, you hear me? Tell me you’ll do this.” He watched as she pulled her rifle out of her duffle and stood. “Does this mean you’ll do it?”

           “All right. I’ll help you.”

           “Oh, thank God!” His face caving with relief. “Here, take this it’s the password to the monorail control terminal. The fastest way to get to Nuka-World is to take the Nuka-Express, but I shut it down so those bastards couldn’t follow me. Find the control terminal in the office to power it back up… and hurry.”

          She turned and purposely strode to the office, calling to Fuzzbutt over her shoulder.

           “God only knows how much time they have left.” He cried after her, then slumped down, his stamina apparently spent.

 

 

                                                                                *****

 

 

           Watching the scenery speed by the windows, Nora shifted on her seat. 200 years had not made the poorly upholstered benches more comfortable. The gentle rocking of the car had cause Fuzzbutt to snuggle against her thigh on the seat and have a nap. She gently patted down the puppy’s spine, and tenderly rubbed the floppy ears, while thinking about Shaun. 

            Was he there? How old would he be? Would she recognize him? Was he looking for her?

          She was broken out of her thoughts by the sudden booming of the Nuka-world spokeswoman sounding throughout the monorail. 

          Fuzzbutt woke with a start, needing to be comforted. Nora was more than happy to calm the pup with a soothing hand.

           “Hello, and on behalf of the Nuka-Cola Corporation, we’d like to welcome each and every one of you aboard the Nuka-Express Monorail.” It began.

            Looking out the right side of the car she could see the beginnings of the park. She smiled seeing Fizztop Mountain come into view as the voice continued its recorded speech, extoling the different parts of the park. Nora tuned it out, lifting Fuzzbutt so she could see the park as well. 

          Midway through the explanation of the western themed area, a blaring static cut out the voice. Nora looked at the speakers curiously. Then her eyes were drawn to an impressively sized oak. Dead like all the rest of the trees she had seen, but what had drawn her gaze, were the bodies hanging in the tree.    

          Some were impaled on branches like morbid shish-ka-babs. Others were confined in small metal cages, turned bright orange and red with rust. The cages were differently sized, some had apparently been stuffed in cramped and unable to straighten, while others were tall but narrow, not allowing the victim to sit. Most of them had pieces of intestines and other entrails hanging from them. One even had a leg dangling by a few wizened tendons. It swayed appallingly in the breeze.  None of the cages held any living souls.

          The rank odor came in through the monorails blasted windows. She tried to cover her nose and mouth in the crook of her elbow, but wasn’t fast enough, taking a whiff of the smell of rot and decay. 

           Heaving, Nora dropped on her knees to the floor unable to take in the sight any longer.

           A gravely man’s voice spoke through the audio system. “So, Harvey bagged another sucker to help his ‘family.’ Can’t believe that gag still works.” His voice seeming to laugh mockingly at her.

           “No! Fucking NO!” Nora screamed.

            The voice got serious. “I only got a minute so you better listen and listen good. The name’s Gage. Porter Gage. And the truth is you’ve been set up.”

           Nora was furious. She was on her way to do the right thing.

           She was on her way to do the right thing! 

          Why did it keep turning out like this! Her breathing becoming shallow and forced, causing Fuzzbutt to edge away eyeing her warily.

           “This ain’t no rescue mission, it’s a death trap.”

            “Because of COURSE it fucking is!” She shrieked through clenched teeth.

           “But if you somehow make it through alive, I have an interesting offer for you.” The doubt in his voice grating her last nerve. “In the meantime, have fun and put on a good show. I’ll be watching.”

          Seeing her hands trembling with rage, Nora forced all the air out of her lungs slowly and shakily. “Calm, calm, calm.” She closed her eyes for a moment, and the image of the bodies in the tree was there to greet her.

           “You know what?” She asked standing, as she watched Fuzzbutt scramble under a bench. “You know what!? I’m not going to be calm!” She set her rifle down as carefully as she was able with the amount of adrenaline running through her. Pulling out her baton she started smashing windows and speakers, or what little was left of them. 

           By the time she had run out of windows, the train had pulled into the station. Panting hard, and still mad as hell, Nora dove out the opening door. “Come and get me assholes” she yelled, her eyes darting furiously, searching for an attacker. 

           At first all she could hear was the echo of her own rather stupid; if no less brave, battle cry. Then the audio system came to life and a different voice chimed in.

           “Attention all my favorite undesirables out there.” The cheery music of the Nuka-World theme song playing gently under the man’s voice. “In case you haven’t noticed, looks like we got ourselves some fresh meat to run the Gauntlet!” The man’s voice was oddly calming like that of an afternoon radio D.J.

          Looking around at the decrepit station, it was obvious these raiders had been here for some time. There were piles of human sized cages stacked near the walls on either end of the station. She couldn’t help sneering at the incredible amount of built up trash piled on the floor everywhere. 

          Catching movement in the corner of her eye, she swung around facing a two story lean to built to the right of the ticket counter. It was only the flutter of a tarp hung over the doorway. She could make out the word Gauntlet spray pained onto the wall illuminated by the many crack in the walls, and shattered windows.

          Making her way around the counter, she spotted a computer. Booting it up only provided four entries for her to read.

          [You’re Dead]

          [You’re SO Dead]

          [Enjoy Dying]

          [Time To Die]

          None of the entries had any content beyond the title. Nora slammed the keyboard in frustration. She heard a little whimper at the echoing clatter. Looking up she saw the pup still hiding under the bench across from the door. The rage mostly drained out of her to see the pup so unsure.

          She sighed heavily and slowly made her way back to the train to collect her rifle and bag. Fuzzbutt stuck her head out curiously. 

          Kneeling down Nora scratched under Fuzzbutt’s chin and spoke comfortingly to her. After a few moments, the pup seemed to get her confidence back. She followed Nora back out the train as she made her way to see if the elevator would be working as the rest of the station was blocked off. It of course wasn’t.

          “Deep breath.” Turning, and digging deep for courage she wasn’t sure she had. She led her little pup down into the Gauntlet.

           

              

        

 


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The gauntlet run.

        Stepping through the broken doorway, Nora was greeted by the announcers voice gleefully commentating. “ Aaand she’s off! Lets hope our latest prey can draw a little… inspiration from our previous victims.”

        Making her way down the staircase, she rounded the corner to take in the sight of a rotting corpse sprawled unnaturally to the left of the landing. She was grateful the gas mask spared her the cloying odor the week old body must have been casting off, but Fuzzbutt didn’t seem so lucky judging by the flurry of sneezes she was letting out.

        Nora watched as Fuzzbutt padded her way through a heavy metal doorway, into what seemed to be an old gift shop judging from the shelving, overturned racks and eating areas. As she approached the entryway, passing beneath a glowing red bulb, she felt all the hairs on the back of her neck stand up.  
She crouched down and softly called to Fuzzbutt who had now made it through the doorway into the long and filthy room beyond. Fuzzbutt looked over her shoulder at Nora then continued on her merry little way past the edge of the door top sniff at some low shelving to the right of the security door.

        This gave Nora a better chance to look around, as she slowly crept her way forward, being ready to leap back behind the doorframe in the occasion should call for it. Turning on her pipboy’s light for added illumination, she could barely hold back the roll of her eyes. It looked like a trash tornado had come and torn the whole room apart, depositing mounds of dirt and garbage intermittently in large heaps.

        As she made it to the edge of the frame, she paused finally spotting the bodies. There was one a few feet away from her, heavily armed and headless, slumped behind a knocked over Nuka-Cola machine. Another lay a few dozen feet further propped against a the seat of a grubby cafeteria chair. It’s body had a blasted hole in it’s chest; so much so, that she thought she could see a ray of light from the overhead bulbs making it’s way through to illuminate the puddle of blood and viscera beneath it.

        Edging forward a few more steps, Nora was soon knocked to the side as the security door swiftly closed behind her pushing forwards. At the same time she was able to hear the gut wrenching sound of wall turrets powering up. She leaned forward to scoop Fuzzbutt to her chest, and rolled backwards, clumsily so, making it to the shelter of the knocked over Nuka-machine. Her back slamming so hard her teeth rattled, as the shock of lasers connected with her cover.

        Checking that the puppy was unharmed, she hastily threw off her bag, pulled out her rifle, and shoved Fuzzbutt inside before zipping it closed. I wouldn’t be comfortable for the pup, but it was better than being struck by the dozens of shots coming from multiple places throughout the room.

        Taking a deep cleansing breath, she brought her rifle to her shoulder and popped up behind the battered machine and fired three quick shots at a turret directly in front of her, at the long end of the gift shop. The first round grazed harmlessly off the top of the turret, while the second and third rounds caught the firing mechanism square center, exploding it in a shower of fire and fiber optics.

        She squatted back down immediately hearing the remaining turrets locking on to her position, Pulling the bag more flush against the back of the soda machine for safety, she gathered her courage and dashed off to her left behind a concrete wall. Half of it had already been blown away, but it provided sufficient cover as she brought her rifle up to a much closer standing turret sitting a top a counter. Firing two shots exploded the gaseous machine, but she had to dive backwards as an unseen wall turret whirred to life from the back of a booth. Seeing it’s shots were unable to reach her, she quickly reloaded her rifle, being mindful of the cross fire from further into the room.

        “This is such a huge pile of BULLSHIT!” She hissed, wriggling forward on her belly to avoid the majority of the fire as she dispatched the surprise turret on the booth. She was glad it had only taken one bullet, thanks to the close range and high caliber of her ammunition.

        Hearing the power surge into another laser turret, she rolled onto her back, thankful that the machine didn’t have an angle on her. But if she lined hers up just right… She grunted as the recoil struck her shoulder hard in her awkward grip, but was satisfied to see the explosion that followed.

        That only left what sounded like three more. Two sounded to be the lasers , but there was at least one more of the gas powered machine gun standing.

        Using the blasted wall for cover Nora was able to take another wall mounted turret with ease. Coming around the side of her shelter she scanned for the last of the turrets. Looking past a row of blasted over shelving, was the telltale movement of a laser turret atop a pair of RobCo charging pods. Picking her way across the decrepit floor, she was relieved to see that the pods were empty, one less thing to worry about.  
She made easy work of the remaining wall turret, and paused listening to hear if there would be another surprise, but was unable to hear over the last gas powered turret. Waiting frozen, she ticked off the time on her head, counting to thirty, and being rewarded with the turret returning to standby mode. It was then a simple matter of leaning around the concrete wall and emptying a final round into the machine.

        Panting lightly, Nora listened again, but silence echoed back at her. She turned and started heading back.

        “Ooh, our new Vic knows how to dodge some bullets. Good thing that’s not all we have in store for her.” Nora jumped at the sound of the mocking D.J.

        Jogging lightly back to her pack, she opened it back up to let Fuzzbutt out. She barked happily as Nora lifted her, checking more carefully for injury. When she was satisfied the little mutt hadn’t been so much as singed, she picked up her bag and pointed forcefully at the carefree puppy.

         “Now, you’ve got to follow. Okay?! Follow! If you go in first, crap like this happens.” She extended her finger until it gently bumped the wet little nose. “I mean it!” Fuzzbutt licked her finger and gave a little yap.

        “JESUS! Who’s torturing who? Pick up the pace Vic.” The announcers voice boomed through the narrow shop.

        Heading back through the mayhem, and trying to avoid the gooey mess the previous victims of the room had been reduced to, Nora shifted her bag, keeping her eyes up in case of more wall mounted turrets. She was nearly through the doorway to the next chamber of the Gauntlet, when Fuzzbutt let out an alarmed bark.

        Turning Nora shushed the little dog, trying to pinpoint what the slight hissing sound she could make out was. Fuzzbutt huffed and padded past Nora, letting out little grumbles, as Nora desperately tried to reach the pup in time.

        Fuzzbutt barked again, at something in the doorway Nora couldn’t quite make out. Then she watched as Fuzzbutt lunged forward, catching a thin line in her teeth, before reefing it backwards as best she could.

         Nora watched dumbfounded as the sound of tripwire snapping echoed, while setting off a flame thrower. That would have been right at her face!

        Feeling Fuzzbutt rubbing against her leg, she patted the pup, while watching the flames slowly die away. Looking into the maze of plywood and exposed concrete in front of her she winced, there had to be dozens more of the trip wires all over the place Illuminated by a construction light in the far corner of the room.

        Fuzzbutt let out what sounded like a smug little grumble as the last of the gas was used up and the flame burned away to nothing. “Yeah, that’s fair.” Nora mumbled as she scooped the helpful little pup up back into her chest-plate carrier.

        Picking her way through the room, she was careful to avoid the many trip lines strewn throughout her path. They seemed to be every few feet, but now that she knew what to be on the lookout for, she was able to make careful, but steady progress through the room.

         Her eyes skipping down the lines she was disturbed to see an assortment of varying guns and rifles. Her eyes were drawn to a sturdy looking shotgun, but she wasn’t nearly confident enough to attempt to disarm it.

        Heading towards the light, she heard the sound of more flamethrowers, and caught the rainbow shine of oil spilled generously on the floor around them. Fuzzbutt let out a growl at the acrid propane smell the burners were spilling out in the enclosed space.

        “It’s alright, I see them.” She consoled, turning a corner “Oh! And there’s… another… dead guy.” She paused to see if in looking down, she was leaving herself open to an attack. But it seemed that whatever had killed this man sprawled out in front of her, had been reset since then.

         She hurried past him as quick as she dared still surrounded by trip lines , and was relieved to see a flight of stairs. This place could only be so big, she figured she should be out soon.

         Climbing each step carefully, half-convinced the every creak of the timeworn planks was the sound of a trap, the static screamed through a nearby speaker. She jumped almost losing her balance, pitching forward and nearly ejecting Fuzzbutt in the process as the voice merrily laughed. “What the hell?! I’ve seen pack brahmin move quicker than this Vic.”

         Pulling herself up, she dashed to the top of the steps. “Damn it Nora! Keep your shit together.” She scolded. After re-adjusting her bag more comfortably, and Fuzzbutt more securely, she felt a calming little lick on her neck beneath her mask. “Thanks, that helps.”

         Taking a few steps around a corner, she suddenly felt the need for more than a pup smooch to help keep calm to deal with sight before her. Giant metal girders had been strapped together with barbed wire and old 18 wheeler tires. The truly horrific part were those bodies impaled on the spikes. Judging by the amount of organs splayed out around the two poor unlucky souls, they were meant to be decoration.

         Breathing hard, but not allowing herself to hyperventilate, Nora turned away, her only hope would be to move forward, and pray she didn’t find herself added to the macabre spectacles she had witnessed thus far.

         The hall in front of her was well lit from the blasted out windows on her right, but the floor was incredibly unsafe. It had sparsely spread 2x4's, that were obviously not nailed down from the trembling some of them made when a gust would blow in from the blasted wastes.

        Knowing she had no choice but to dash, she screwed up her courage and refused to look down, concerned her fear of heights might cause her to freeze or misstep. She managed to make it while only knocking off a few of the boards.

        “That went better than expected" she breathed.

        A spray painted arrow directed her to the left. Peeking around, she emerged rifle first into a chamber with several hallways. Seeing more wires, she smiled. These ones lead to what might now be one of her favorite things in the world. Grenades.

         Again the announcer spoke, wiping the grim little grin she was wearing right off. “ The Vic’s still alive, but don’t let that get you down. The gauntlet still got plenty in store for this one.”

        Stalking towards the trap, she was mindful of the trip wires spread around the bouquet of grenades. They hung just above several propane tanks, sitting in a puddle of oil. She would only have one chance to get it right.

         Using the knife she was able to take the grenades and unwrap the wire that had nearly armed them so she could safely take them with her.

         Following the trail created by the oil slick, she continued down a hallway, this time able to see from the light of windows on her left. Spotting a set of three red doors ahead of her, she saw a face and drew back. Peering around again, she saw the face was one of three heads, nailed into the wall beside each of the doors with a large metal spike. Each head had a question mark scrawled above it.

         She had only taken a few steps back towards the doors, when she stopped short as the voice once again merrily cooed to her. “It’s decision time, all doors lead to death. Just some more slowly than others.”  
Approaching the door to her left she glanced down at the small pup, her little paws on the edge of Nora's chest plate, as she panted happily.  
   

        “What do you think? This one seem good?” Nora asked the puppy. She felt silly, but the dog did seem to have pretty good instincts so far. Getting a flurry of tail thumps , she rubbed Fuzzbutt’s ear. “Good enough for me.”

        Opening the door slowly, straining to hear the snap of a trip lines, she was relieved to see naught but another hallway ahead. Edging into revealed no further danger so she headed down until she came to a concrete ramp.

         She hadn’t yet made it to the bottom of the ramp when she caught sight of a host of bright yellow radio-active barrels. At almost the same time the Geiger on her pip-boy began ticking madly.

         It had only been 30 minutes since she had administered the last dose of rad-x to herself but pulled out the bottle anyways. She swallowed two for herself as she read the faded directions the best she could in the dim light filtering through the spaces in the makeshift walls the raiders had constructed to enclose the space.

         Shaking one into her hand she offered it to the pup. “This shouldn’t be an overdose. I think… Well it would be better than the radiation.” She said concernedly, the pup was so small, and these drugs seemed strong.

         Fuzzbutt spit the pill out back into Nora’s hand. “No.” She scolded, “You have to eat it, it will make you feel better.” Fuzzbutt looked at her reproachfully but swallowed the pill, pulling a face to prove what a trial it was for her. “That’s a good girl.”

         Nora pulled a piece of fancy lad snack cake from her pocket that she had been saving for later, and gave it to the pup as a reward. Then with a deep breath she hurried back down the ramp into the room beyond. It had a large counter surrounded by more of the radioactive barrels lit by a hanging Nuka-cola sign dangling from the ceiling by one of it sides. This must have been a drink bar of sorts when the park was running.

         A lantern on yet more of the barrels drew her eyes to another door with its own helpful little arrow pointing to it. Approaching it she was sickened to find the door was locked. Or perhaps it was the amount of rads she knew she was soaking up.

         Pulling out her Bobby pins, she saw she had four left, since she had ruined one of the cuffs that had held her captive, and used another on her bra repair.

         After breaking two in the much more difficult lock on the door, she let out a small shriek of frustration. Her mood not made better by the announcer choosing then to chime in with, “Hope someone brought there rad-away, cause our Vic is about to get roasted like a squirrel on a stick.”

        She stood, deciding to give the room a quick once over, perhaps these drugs addled idiots had left a key somewhere. It seemed unlikely, but it would be a great way to try and formulate what the inside of the lock looked like with what she had learned, and allow her to hopefully calm enough to utilize the mind map she was creating of it.

         Seeing a small alcove in the back of the room she headed there to start. Just behind the wall was and incredibly rusted set of shelves full of junk, and a bright orange tool box. Nora reached for it, hoping for a screwdriver or hammer as she had dumped hers out earlier. Then she snorted, there was a set of rusty keys, nearly blending into the shelf.

        “They CAN’T be THAT stupid.” She muttered heading back to the door. After the second key grindingly opened it she admitted, “Okay, maybe they can.”

         She headed down another hall strewn with rusted cages and terrible metal stands and spikes.

        The announcer, sounding almost offended spoke up. “Someone thinks their a real tough guy huh? But the Gauntlet ain’t through with her yet!”

         Making her way past four rusted railings for guiding guests, still adorned with the skeletons of those who must have been here the day the bombs had fallen, she saw the floor had been deliberately caved in before her. It looked stable enough, and the cursed arrows were directing her to a door at the bottom. This door was unlocked and seemed to head directly into the earth.

         “Good God, this thing never ends!” she hissed. After giving her eyes a moment to adjust to the dimmer light cast by a few bare bulbs throughout the underground passage, she heard the familiar hum of a computer. Seeing a desk to her left, she headed around it and began tapping the keys.

         By focusing on the task and not her situation, she was able to bring herself nearly back to a calm state. After unlocking the device with only a few missed tries, she saw it lead to, oh joy, more turrets. Seeing they weren’t currently active, she decided to continue on.

         She made her way back across the room she followed more arrows to the top of a small flight of steps to a dimly light room beyond. She could make out large industrial shelves lining both sides of the room. Her gut clenched at the sight of a creepy monkey doll holding a pair of golden cymbals, lording over the room at the far end.

        She hated those Goddamn monkeys. Dropping to a knee, she lined up her shot and took the things head clean off with a round through its face. In the glow of the explosion, she saw numerous gas powered turrets sitting idly on the shelves. There had to be more than half a dozen. She wasn’t willing to take the risk that these might not be the same turrets linked to the computer. She didn’t seem to be that lucky.

           Retrieving her grenades, she pulled the pins, and quickly lobbed them into each corner of the room before retreating around a corner in the hall.

         Covering her left ear, she sharply pulled her head to the right to cover the right ear, while her right hand covered Fuzzbutt’s ears. Within seconds , the grenades exploded and she breathed in relief as she heard the secondary explosions of the turrets meeting their end.

           Heading through the smoky storage room, she found another key marked storage room. She also found another metal door, with its own indicating arrow. It squealed in ear splitting complaint when she swung it open.

         “Awww, what? Call me crazy, but I think our Vic’s got something against fun.” Laughed the announcer.

         Looking around, Nora figured she had to be in the generator room for the whole park, as there had to be more than twenty of the nuclear suckers throughout the room. The raiders had taken the neat lines they had been installed in and turned it into another labyrinth.

         Feeling her stamina begin to lag, she figured just charging through would be the best option. She began to snake her way around the giant nuclear reactors, up and down shoddily made little wooden ramps, until she was herded towards an old animatronic alien, complete with functional ray-gun. She discovered how functional as she dashed back behind cover, but still took a shot to the leg.

         She cursed at the feeling of the strike, like being struck by a gallon of boiling glue, unaware the majority of the damage was being absorbed by her vault suit. Tossing a small stone, she was able to shoot the ray-gun straight through as it targeted the pebble. The alien still swung at her gnashing its tiny teeth at her, but it was unable to reach her.

          Limping slightly, she continued her charge through the maze, stopping only long enough to pull a fusion core out of one of the still active generators. She was hoping this might power down any more turrets these bastards had set up for her.

          Spotting more arrows she was recognizing as a sort of end of chamber indicator, she headed through the doorway into a dank and narrow tunnel beyond. She dropped to a knee, taking out a turret at the end of the hall guarding a door, she the now expected voice chimed in.

           “Time for things to get dangerous. See if the Vic can survive what’s next.”

           She had found herself in what was left of the freeway tunnels bringing guests from elsewhere. Seeing one end of the tunnel caved in, Nora felt the first choking tendrils of her claustrophobia take hold.

           “Stay calm, that probably happened a long time ago. This place is safe. Well…” her voice trailed off as she took in the sight of the many rusted cars and piles of debris looming over her. Even through the mask, she could taste how old and stale the air was.

          Hearing a stone tumble behind her she could no longer contain her fear and began dashing down tunnel breathing raggedy, avoiding the many decrepit vehicles that had died there. Heading between pillars, she ran through more of the tunnels thinking only of the bright expanse of the sky. The exit had to be just around the next bend. Just down the next ramp!

          She briefly caught the blinking red light of landmine nestled by the wheels of one of the many rusted out 18 wheelers. Whether it was her speed in passing them by, or the unnaturally light steps she had always taken, they thankfully weren’t set off.

         She was barely able to register the annoyed D.J. Over the sound of her pounding heartbeat. “Is this some kind of joke? I knew we should have put turrets in there!”

         The next thing she knew she was clutching a chain link fence, overlooking a large natural cave. It’s earthen walls slightly further apart then the man made tunnel behind her. It’s bottom was a full story down and had a generous pond of water in it. Ahead she could see, illuminated by a large amount of glowing green fungus another of the make shift 2x4 bridges. This one was even more haphazardly put together, being only a few beams wide. She could make out a door at the end of the bridge, yet the path below also snaked off the left.

         Should she risk falling from the bridge? Or climb down the wall more or less safely now? Looking down she saw clusters of enormous looking eggs. They seemed even larger than the ostrich eggs she had once seen. She doubted the large birds had layed them.

         “This really sucks.” She whimpered before diving headlong down the beams, sure every step would pitch her down below. She practically leaped the last few steps and bounced lightly against the door.

         Trying the handle, she found the door was locked. Her hands were shaking, and she was far to upset to try the delicate work of unlocking it, so instead she began to throw her body at the door. She still had enough mindset to cradle Fuzzbutt close to her chest, and keep an eye on the foot and half of clearance from the edge.

         She wasn’t sure if it was the added weight her pack gave her, or the humidity rotten door frame, but it only took a few strikes before the whole thing caved in. She stumbled through, but managed to keep her footing as the announcer scoffed. “What the hell! Goddamn Derek, that doors supposed to be boarded up!”

        Another of the red rusted out trailers lay on her right illuminated by a fire barrel. She passed it to see broken forklifts and trucks. Once she could make out past the shadows, she could see more of the blood and bodies so common to this place. She could easily count three more bodies hanging from hooks in varying degrees of dismemberment, but more blood on the floor lead her to be live there had been a great deal more victims.

         A bare light bulb above a door beckoned her with proclaiming arrows. Glancing down she saw a tension trap near the bottom of the door. Forcing the panic down she closed her eyes and breathed deliberately through her nose.

         ‘These guys are pretty dumb.’ She thought as she tried to cease her trembling through sheer force of will. ‘They couldn’t have set up anything too complex. You’re a smart girl. Figure. It. Out.’ Opening her eyes, she squatted down and looked at the trap from all sides. She had been correct! It should be a simple matter of disconnecting a wire here, and a panel there.

          Her heart froze as the shake in her hands hadn’t left entirely, but not feeling she had another choice, she went ahead and attempted to disarm the trap. After it let out a discharging hiss, it clattered to the floor, while the door swung open.

         Fuzzbutt growled softly. Nora stroked her head lightly, ”Yeah, I see them.”

         The hallway they now had access to thankfully sloped up, but the tight quarters were riddled with oil stains, crates and traps. Avoiding the pressure triggered bathroom scales proved easy, allowing her to make it to the top of the hallway quickly. Turning a corner she saw more of the grenades with their matching trip wires generously spread through the cramped hall.

          Having used all of her grenades, she saw this as a great time to cherry pick a few more. She placed them in her sides pants pocket, and was able to find a few more in a bright yellow explosives box by the door.

         That seemed odd to her, why would they knowingly provide her with grenades?

         She was still mulling this thought over when she passed into what seemed to be a maintenance room. The door swung firmly shut behind her, making a large click when it’s magnetic lock engaged.

         The announcer happily cried out. “Someone thinks she’s clever! Time for a little reality check.”

         Suddenly Fuzzbutt began to choke wildly, clawing at Nora as her eyes rolled back in her head.

         There was no way she was going to let this little pup die! She made what she knew was the stupid decision. Taking a deep breath she pulled off the mask and placed the dog inside, sealing it beneath the pup the best she could.

         She saw gas was hissing into the room, and began to frantically turn off search for a way out. Her vision quickly became blurry and her thoughts terribly disjointed.

          She knew she had found a key.

          She had seen more of the large roaches and had shouldered her weapon.

          ‘No!’ the thought screamed through her head. ‘No fire.’ It sounded like a scolding school ma’rm pointing out the obvious.

          So instead she remembered grabbing her knife. “But why?” She asked stupidly, the gas making her feel higher than when she had experimented in college.

         The voice did not deign to answer, but the announcer had said…. Something.

        She blinked through the haze of color swimming before her eyes. She was on the other side of the door? Looking down she saw her chest covered in blood that didn’t seem to be hers. She shook Fuzzbutt out of the mask into the chest plate. The pup seemed fine, and the air fresh, so she replaced the mask on her head hoping it would help sober her up faster.

         In the mean time she had to keep moving, high or not she wasn’t going to die here, not after all the bullshit she had survived.

         She stumbled down some steps, and came face to face with what was either a flock of murderous fairies, or flying ants, she couldn’t tell from the way they sparkled in the sunlight streaming down through the rafters overhead.

         She heard the D.J. say something about clean air as she stumbled forward swatting at the fairy-bugs. Fuzzbutt managed to snatch a few from the air, and after Nora slapped a few more to the ground, they left her alone.

         She blinked and found herself out of the storage shed she had been in and instead more of a literal plywood maze.

         Why had she stopped? Then she heard the sound of a turret, even in her addled state, she had stopped before running headlong into its path.

         She pulled a pin on a grenade and tossed at the middle turret, she couldn’t tell if there were three or four by the look of them, but it really only sounded like one to her.

        Confident she had taken it out, she felt her minor control slip as another wave nausea swept over her. She stumbled on, were people taking pot shots at her? She fired above her, but that couldn’t be right? It was sky above her. Sky and…. Chicken wire?

         Suddenly she realized why even in her limited functionality now, this place had seemed to familiar, she was in a lab rat maze!

         Keeping from full on panicking became harder as she crashed against walls, and slid off what seemed to be bumper cars. She could feel tears streaming down her cheeks as more shots were taken at her. There had to be and exit!

         Finally her eyes caught more of those hastily scrawled white arrows and she wept in relief. She pawed at the door and wrenched it open, collapsing heavily on the other side. She slide down the door, to sit on the floor for a moment and catch her breath as a blaring alarm sounded through the cavernous space.

         “Well I’ll be damned! You know what that sounds means. Get your ass down to cola-cars! The main event is about to begin.” The announcer sounded closer than ever. This must be where his voice was originating from.

         After a moment, she got to her feet, ahead of her she could see she was in the cola-cars bumper arena. In the ride, there were two men, one in a heavily modified suit of Power Armor, while the other seemed to be making a few final adjustments to the suit.

          Knowing that this must be the end of this nightmare, that there was only a bit left, and then she would be finished, helped her draw herself back to hear feet. Now only feeling a little light headed.

         Seeing the hallway lead to the right she dragged herself down it, only pausing a moment at the sickening display of a headless body speared throughout the chest at the base of a short green employee stairwell. Heading to the top of it, she found an intercom on the wall.

         After pressing it she could hear the man in the Power Armor speak. “You got me wired up yet, Gage?” he asked his companion in a vaguely Australian accent. Nora could see a power line leading from the suit up to the ceiling, the same way the bumper cars were geared.

          “Yeah boss.” The man’s voice sounded familiar.

          “Finally. Now go shut off that damn alarm.”

          “All right, I’m on it.” The second man dashed off.

          “Hmph. Now where….” He looked around, then spotted Nora on the walkway. “Ah. There’s my next victim now. Heh. Don’t look like much.” He chuckled nastily. “Here’s a quick run down on how this works. You go stock up, make yourself presentable, and then we’re gonna give these folks a show.” He squared his shoulders at her arrogantly. “A show where I decorate these walls here with your lovely brains. Thanks to this suit, I’m the only one that wins this fight. Period.”

         Nora couldn’t help feeling a small bubble of hope. If she could win this one fight... Could she win her freedom?

         “Think you’re hot shit getting this far?” he continued. “Think again. All right,” he called over his shoulder, “Gage. Let her through. Something tells me I’m really going to enjoy this.”

        A magnetic lock opened a metal door to her right indicating the way to a locker room at the bottom of a set of stairs. First she had to walk through a large storage area for old bumper cars, and the blasted out forklifts used to move them.

         “It’s almost time!” the voice gleefully announced. “After a run like that, this ought to be the best slaughter yet! Remember, longest survival time against Colter still stands at one minute, thirty-seven seconds!”

        After that she was able to head into the locker room. Walking in she hissed her breath in through her teeth. This was the most gore she had seen yet, with the body of a young woman slumped against a bench by the entry. Limbs were carelessly strewn about the floor, many having been flayed. Some were stacked in the open shelving of the dozens of Nuka-Cola red lockers for the dozens of employees hired by the park.

        A small intercom on a far wall crackled weakly to life, the voice emitting from it different from that of the irritating D.J. “All right, listen the hell up if you want to make it out of this alive. I’ve only got a minute.” She thought it sounded like the one the boss Colter had called Gage.

         She approached the intercom skeptically. He seemed to be the boss man’s lackey, but she now realized, his was the voice that had warned her on the train.

         “Find the intercom on the wall. I'll make it quick.” He commanded.

         “Who is this?” she demanded mashing the red ‘talk’ button.

         “I’m the guy that’s going to get you out of this alive, so listen up.”

         “Yeah, what’s in it for you?” She asked suspiciously.

         “This ain’t just about what’s in it for me. Both of us reap the rewards if you pull this off.”

         “All right. I’m listening.”

         “My kinda girl.” She couldn’t help pulling a face at the velvety tone he took. “Look: you made it this far, its obvious you got skill. But this fight coming up? It’s rigged. You get me?”

         ‘Color me surprised.’ She thought to herself, leaning on arm against the wall she hung her head in weary despair as Gage explained.

         “Overboss Colter… his Power Armor’s set up to draw energy from the electric grid in the arena. Damn things invincible. You name it, someone’s tried it – miniguns, grenades. Not a scratch. You get what I’m saying?” He sounded almost sad telling her this.

        She wiped her hand tiredly over her face. “So how do I beat him?”

        “You want to win? I stashed a weapon in the lockers. Get it.”

        She turned looking around the dingy chamber, trying so hard to ignore the bodies and despair pervading through the cramped quarters. Trying to search quickly, she ended up throwing useless items to the blood soaked floor.

        She found a host of fedora’s, lead pipes, and a minigun she couldn’t have hoped to handle, even without the tip it wouldn't work. Until finally something odd caught her eye on the bottom shelf of one of the last lockers she had to check. A Thirst Zapper. They were squirt guns she remembered seeing commercials for before the war. It seemed to have a full tank of water, and after a practice squirt, she saw it fired just fine. Figuring this is what she had been meant to find, she headed back to the speaker.

         “Is this a squirt gun?” She hoped this was the right weapon, being laughed at then massacred, just seemed like the worst possible case of adding insult to injury.

         “Yeah, yeah, I know what it looks like.” Gage replied sheepishly. “You’re just going to have to trust me.”

         “Seriously, is this some kind of joke?”

         “Nope, it’s the perfect weapon. Once the water hits Colter's electrically-charged Power Armor, the circuits are gonna short out. It’ll kill his defenses, but you’ll only have so much time to do some damage before they recharge. You take him out, I promise you, It’ll be worth every minute spent in this Gauntlet.”

        Knowing the end was at hand, one way or another, she felt a sense of hopeful relief. With slightly buoyed spirits she couldn’t help but quip, “Staying hydrated is half the battle, right?”

        “He ain’t got a choice.” She could hear some movement through the intercom, the he spoke again, all business. “All right, it’s time. I’ll open the door. See you on the other side.”

         She headed down a hall, around to the entrance of the arena. The whole place practically shook with the screaming of the hordes of raiders in the bleachers. They crowded around the safety screens pulling wildly at it, howling for blood. Her blood. Looking up she couldn’t help but be reminded of the coliseums of old.

         As soon as he caught sight of her, Colter boomed out to the howling masses. “All right! Disciples! Are you ready for blood?”

         Nora watched as the masked portion of the audience members, maybe a third of them stood forward chanting, “Death….Death…Death…”

         “And the pack! Are you ready for things to get wild?”

         This time it was a brightly painted portion coming forward. Rather then a unified chant, they keeled their heads back, howling and snarling like rabid animals.

         “Operators! Are you ready to see me notch another kill?” Colter gestured wildly.

         This brought the last group, notable by all of them being in fine dress, and nearly reserved as the approached the divider. They clapped half-heartedly, then retreated quickly back into the crowd.

          Nora took this opportunity to unsling her bag. She kept her knife on her, as well as a little pipe pistol she had picked up in the locker room, and of course the squirt gun. The rifle, she stowed in her bag. As the metal door behind her swung open to admit her, she stowed Fuzzbutt in the bag, letting her head poke out.

           She rubbed the dogs ear soothingly, “You are very cute. If I don’t make it… I mean who couldn’t love you?” Stifling a tear, she turned smartly on her heel to face her opponent.

          “And you…” he sneered, “are you ready to die?”

          Staring at him, she allowed the rage flow through her. She fed it the horrors she had seen. The disgust she had felt. Even the fear was eaten away by its fiery tendrils. This was it. Kill THIS man, and be done. She drew her squirt gun in her left hand, while gripping her knife tightly in her right and strode into the arena.

         “And the slaughter has begun!” shouted the announcer.

         Wasting no time, Nora drew her gun up, and quick fired a dozen blasts of water at the hulking Overboss. It was so unexpected, he didn’t react at first. Then the electricity began to short and arc throughout his Armor. In his panic, he stumbled back as the suit finally lost power completely.

          Nora had already started running, ignoring the searing burn on her leg, she quickly dashed to a bumper car just to Colter’s left. Keeping her momentum, she leapt against it, to haul herself onto Colter’s back like a demented possum.

         “What’s happening? What is this?” Colter gasped, feeling Nora pulling his helmet to the side exposing a small patch of his neck.

         “What the hell was that a water gun?” the stupefied announcer helpfully added.

         Colter was trying to swat her off with the rifle he had brought with him. Tossing aside the squirt gun, Nora put all her efforts into driving her knife down into that sweet spot of skin.

         They both grunted as she succeeded, burying the blade to its hilt straight through his shoulder, into his heart. He fell to his knees, and she tumbled off, taking the blade with her. The choking gasp that reverberated through his helmet was both horrifying, and disturbingly satisfying.  
The crowd, realizing she was the winner, collectively gasped in shock. More than a few booed, and many seemed to be clamoring for answers from the higher ups.

        She watched as Gage walked up to the control booth and bent to the mic. “You saw it. We all saw it! Colter's dead. We got ourselves a new Overboss.” He looked over at the top of the viewing gallery, where four people stood. She would guess they were the leaders from their stances, and that each was a brilliant representation for their respective groups.

        A man and a woman, bearing close familial resemblance, were clean, smartly dressed, and casually standing together. There was also a sharp looking female, standing tensely nearby, nearly her entire head covered by a metal mask. And finally a peacocks most envious nightmare in a tall, muscular man.

        The large ginger, garishly adorned in face paint spoke. “This guy? Are you sure Gage?

         “You better know what the hell your doing.” Admonished the masked woman.

          Gage huffed in annoyance, “Hey! We talked about this! She survived the gauntlet. She was smart enough to take my advice, and strong enough to kill Colter. She’s what we need. So how about we show some respect for our new leader, eh?”

         That’s when it sunk in. She was the boss now. The Overboss. Of all these deranged psychopathic killers. Great.

         The well suited woman looked down her pretty nose at Nora. “She’ll get respect, when she earns respect.”

         “Amen." Agreed her companion as they turned and strode away.

         “All right, all right. Now get the hell out of here. I’ll show the boss around.” Gage laughed.

         Seeing the door to where she had left her pack was open again, she jogged over. Fuzzbutt barked happily at the sight of her, and made unzipping the bag difficult due to the flurry of wet kisses the pup was giving her. She did finally manage it, and after calming the pup, she put her once more into her jury rigged puppy holster.

         She turned, taking a deep breath, and strode across the arena where her new second in command waited patiently.

         “See what'd I tell you? Worked like a charm.” He smiled broadly at her

         “So you really wanted the Overboss dead?” Nora wondered how long she had before the bastards would turn on her too.

         “Dead, out of the way… what’s the difference? Either way, good riddance. The plan was a success.”

         Feeling the exhaustion getting to her, she couldn’t help joking, “Death by squirt gun. I’d love to see the message on his tombstone.”

         “Tell me about it. I wish I had a better look at his face when the suit shorted out.” He rubbed the back of his neck in a vaguely apologetic manner. “I get that you have no idea what’s going on, and everything is coming at you real fast, but you need to listen.”  
She didn’t even try to suppress her tired sigh.

        He seemed to have not heard and plunged on. “Taking out Colter wasn’t just a last minute decision…. It was something a few of us here have been working on for a while. Now that he’s actually gone, we’ve got ourselves a vacancy in the Overboss department. And guess what… you just got the job. All I’m asking is that you trust me on this and give it a shot. I swear it’ll be worth it.”

          She incredulously asked, “First you lure me in here, now you want me to run the place?”

         “Something like that. Let me explain. There are three raider gangs that run the show at Nuka-World – the Disciples, the Operators, and the Pack. And yeah, if the names didn’t give it away these ain’t your typical Raiders. These morons don’t exactly play nice with each other. Thanks to Colter this place is a powder keg just waiting to blow sky high. One wrong move, and were going to have a bloodbath on out hands.

        ‘So that’s NOT a normal thing for them.’ She mused.

        “I think you have what it takes to turn things around and keep these gangs from tearing each other apart.”

         ‘You’ve known me like, two hours, tops.’ She thought. Nora couldn’t believe the turns their logic had lead them to. “Why me? I’m sure you’re better suited to the job.”

          “We'll get into that later. Now I’m sure you got a lot of questions, but this ain’t the place. Meet me at he the Overboss’ – your new quarters, the restaurant on top of good old Fizztop Mountain. We can talk there.”

         Pulling a face behind her mask, she couldn’t help thinking ‘That sounded ominous.’ And watched him walk away.

         “Quarters mean a bed.” She murmured to Fuzzbutt. Checking her pip-boy clock she saw that it was only two in the afternoon. “And I need a friggin' nap.” She followed the path through the building she saw Gage had taken in search of a safe place to rest, if only for a few hours.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow! This chapter was an asshole of a thing! No matter it is done now, and we can get back to the good stuff. Iike meeting the heads of gangs. So be of good cheer, the next chapters should be so very much faster, and so very sexy! Thanks for your continued support and interest. :D


	12. Chapter 12

          Nora’s eyes blearily opened at the soft sound of the pip-boys radio alarm clicking on. The last strains of an old and overly plucked guitar echoing through the cluttered room she awoke in. Swinging her legs over the bed, she held her head between her hands, as the throbbing beginnings of a headache thrummed along her temples. Each scream of protest by the worn metal added a new pinprick of pain.  
         

           She recognized the voice as the same man who had gleefully announced her run through the horrid gauntlet. “Hey it’s your main man Red eye here, sending out some big congratulations to our brand new Overboss.”  
         

          Groaning, Nora bent so she could massage the back of her skull as the Red eye went on. “That’s right, if you hadn’t heard, Colter is toast.”

          “Christ, no one gives a shit about each other out here.” She mumbled as she stretched her neck and shoulders out.  
 

         “He’s worm food. Not only did someone survive the gauntlet, they took on Colter and won!” he sounded more excited to have news to report than he did about its content.  
 

          ‘He would have done well before the war too.’ Reaching over to a nightstand set up beside her rusty framed bed, she grabbed a hairbrush she had found lying around. She slowly began to brush her long locks as the D.J. merrily continued on.  
 

         “I already hear people talking about some secret agreement between Gage and the gangs, saying whoever took down Colter would take his place.” Red eyes tone became puerile, “You believe that? I didn’t vote for this chick, how come she get to be Overboss? I mean hell, if I’d known they were looking for somebody, I would’ve thrown my name into that hat. You know what I’m saying?” He seemed to realize what he had said on the radio, the one the new boss could, and was, listening to. His voice pitched up as he tried to backpedal without seeming like he was.  
 

         “Well whatever, I can’t wait to see what our new leader has planned. At least… can’t be any worse than Colter right? Right!?”  
 

         She reached over and turned the radio off, accidently knocking a human skull the previous tenant had left next to a greasy lantern. She watched it rock back and forth before an anxious yip drew her gaze away. Next to the far side of the little table was a worn and dusty, blue upholstered chair. On its stained cushion Fuzzbutt perched, peering over the edge. Whining piteously, she looked from the floor to Nora, begging for help down. Setting the pup on the floor, she began to explore her ramshackle new quarters.

           She discovered the space contained a dilapidated kitchen, complete with its own chemistry station. She could only guess it was for making the scattered drugs splayed about on the counters . Wandering through the space, she cursed, tripping on the exposed and rotting floor. Her toe catching on a pipe sending her stumbling.

           She made it to a doorway just off the kitchen. Peering in, she saw a cramped room with a well stocked pantry crowded with shelves. There was food galore, and such an ample supply water she had actually managed to crack a smile at the sight. Now she could bathe. She grabbed an harmful of bottles and continued on.  
 

         In the main bedroom she explored the multitude of lockers filled with a variety of clothing and armour. In them she had found a large collection of bras, each with their own Polaroid attached to them. The women in the photos had appeared to be in the large, stained bed in the outer suite she had crossed through to reach the interior apartments. The women seemed to be from each of the gangs, judging by the face paint, masks, and haughty expressions they each wore. A few seemed unimpressed, but it they all seemed to have consented to the exchange with a few being downright lewd in their poses.  
 

        Tearing the photos apart, Nora chose three of the garments that seemed near enough to her size, and as close to clean as she was likely to get. The rest she tossed to the bottom of the locker in an undignified pile.  
 

          She turned and faced a twin set of doors. Opening the door to her left, she recoiled slightly. In the small half bath, there were three twisted and posed mannequins around the toilet. The light had been blown, so they appeared more sinister and creepy in the flickering shadows.

           Fuzzbutt had chosen that moment to pad her way over and cocking her head curiously from side to side at the sight, her ears slapping lightly against her head.  
 

          “I don't know… Maybe…. It’s a sex... thing?” Nora murmured.

           She closed the door, and opened its twin hoping for a less macabre sight. She breathed a sigh of relief seeing only a regular two piece bathroom.  
 

        She stepped over to the tilted ceramic sink, while setting down the bottles of water. Looking into the shadowy mirror, she groaned at the filthy reflection staring back. She bared her teeth at the sight of the Y shaped scar running along the right side of her face. The battery acid had ensured it was deeply carved and ugly. The stimpaks had closed the wound, but it still looked red and raw. She poked it a few times without pain, but was dismayed by how deep her finger sunk into it.

           Sighing she opened the mirror’s medicine cabinet. She might always have the reminder of her first meeting in the hell hole, but she be damned if it didn’t make her look kind of badass. Like she wasn’t some green vault dweller. Which with this crowd could only be an advantage.  
She found a few bottles of pills and a bar of soap. She took the soap, and finding it clean, she closed the cabinet. Opening one of the bottles of water, she began the arduous task of washing her long locks

          She then stripped off her vault suit and scrubbed her body, using five of the precious bottles in total. She figured being the boss and all, she should be able to get them replaced easily enough. And if not, well, this bath had definitely been well earned.  
 

        Finishing she sat back on the bed, and after drying her tresses the best she could with an old shirt, she brushed her mane out once again. After French braiding her hair, she dressed with the new bra, it fitting her a bit too tightly.

          Figuring it would be better to voluntarily contract tetanus then to try and wear any of the used panties she had come across, she decided to go commando in her vault suit. She wore her army fatigues, with a surprisingly well fitting pair of combat boots. Last she put on the chest plate that had proven to be helpfully multi-functional.

           She headed to the lockers and stuffed her pockets with a variety of knives, explosives, and extra rounds for a small sawed off shotgun she slung around her back.

           Placing her hands on her hips she looked around the dingy apartment. She couldn’t see any other items she wanted to take and could no longer put off the talk Gage had insisted on having as soon as she awoke.  
 

         She called Fuzzbutt to her and strode down the hallway, pausing before the doors she inhaled deeply. She felt she was in so far over her head, there was nowhere to go but up. “Just fake it till you make it.” She told herself and opened the door to the outer suite with far more confidence than she felt.

          Gage was sitting behind the counter of a bar, looking up as she walked out. His dirty face was stony as he evaluated hers for the first time. Well, the best he could with his one, his right eye behind a ridiculously oversized eye patch. The thing looked like it had been forged in a smithy and covered half of his face.  
 

       She looked him over for the in earnest for the first time since meeting him as well. He straightened under her gaze, with a proud bearing. He was a tall man, getting a few extra inches from his carefully trimmed, light brown Mohawk. His face was lightly lined and tanned, she would guess he was in his early forties.

          His lanky frame was covered an old and terribly stained tank top, barely visible behind a bulky chest plate. It seemed to have been welded together from what once must have been the frame of a bulldozer, judging by the chipped and faded yellow paint it bore. His shoulders were adorned with more of the same metal, bristling with nasty three inch spikes.

           She met his hazel green left eye in an intimidating staring match. The tense moment stretched out, until her stomach growled in response to the heavenly aroma of meat wafting off a plate in front of Gage.

          He smiled and placed a plate on the counter beside him heaped with more of the steaming meat. He had also stacked a mound of red starchy looking vegetables. “Welcome home boss.”

            She grinned, her mouth watering as he set out cutlery for her as she sat on the stool next to him. She cut a particularly choice piece of meat inhaling deeply. She brought the fork to her lips, and paused as she had a horrific thought. These people were savages… She turned to Gage. “This meat… its not… erm… What is it?”

            “Pack went out hunting to celebrate the turnover. They took down a Brahmiluff. Sent it for your supper.” His gravely voice seemed amused. “You taking down Colter like that seems to have earned you a little respect. Well enough that the operators sent the Tato’s, and the seasonings. While the Disciples,” he paused to take a bite of his own. “They made sure no one… interrupted your rest.”  
 

         The conversation lulled as they both devoured the meals, Nora being sure to toss a piece here and there to Fuzzbutt. She noticed that although she was sitting on his good side, he kept his eyes on his plate, not staring at her. She was grateful for that, and for whatever a Brahmiluff was. Some relative of the cow guessing by the name and the taste.

            Their meals complete, he turned to her wiping his mouth. “Now that we're done eating. Time for that talk.” He reached behind the old restaurant counter and pulled out two Nuke Colas. He opened them both and handed one to her, dropping the caps noisily on the counter. He took a swig and gestured around the dilapidated apartment.  
 

            “The digs are yours now – hope you like the look.” They stepped away from the bar. He noticed her gaze resting on another of the creepy posed mannequins, her lip pulling a bit at the sight. “Colter had some peculiar tastes.” He admitted, as they walked to the windows away from the depressing sight of the filth filled room. She took a drink and stood before the glass.  
 

         “But this view is something, huh?” he asked a bit proudly. The sun had sunk low casting a golden glow that did well to hide most of the parks decay.

            She had to admit here was a certain savage beauty to the sight. She tried to take in a moment of calm as he continued.

           “Everything you see here is under your control, now that you’re in charge.” He stood just behind her left shoulder, just in her peripheral vision.

             “I sure do like the sound of that.” Nora mused. A ready made army, the size that this place could house…. Why she'd be holding Shaun in her arms by the end of the week. She tried to keep an icy demeanor, but the bubble of excitement, of the knowledge she’d made it in the wasteland, she couldn’t help a small grin.  
 

            “I thought you might.” Gage answered with a smile of his own reflected in the dirty pane. It was, however, quickly chased away by a more serious face. “Look, I’ll be honest with you: this operation needs someone to step in and take the reins."

             That effectively put a hole in her happiness bubble. She turned and faced him with her ‘betray nothing face’ she had practiced so often for when she had needed to appear in court.  
 

           He had the grace to look her straight in the eye as he simply stated. “Sure as hell ain’t gonna be me; leading outright ain’t my style, and there’s already some blamin' me for supporting Colter all this time.” He shrugged modestly, “My talents are best put to use helping a new Overboss get all this shit under control. You get me?”

          Oh, she got it alright. She was probably meant to be somewhere between a scapegoat, or a pit-bull. Either way, he meant to be holding the leash.  
 

           But he did bring up an interesting point, one perhaps vital to her survival. “What kind of talents would you say you have, Gage?”

             He smirked, although not lewdly. “Aside from being a good shot and having a foul mouth? I’ve run with gangs nearly my whole life. I know how Raiders think, what they’re after, and how to use that to your advantage.” He became all business. “ Trust me, I’m in this as much as you are. This shit needs to work out.”  
 

          “I hear you Gage.” She solemnly replied.  
 

          “Good. I know I’m throwing a lot all at once here.” He admitted almost apologetically.

           Taking another swig of cola, he continued on. “Let’s take a step back, and talk big picture, okay? Nuka-World… Shit, this was the dream. Huge, built like a goddamn fortress. You run this, the world is yours.”

           Nora couldn’t deny how attractive that sounded, nor the sound of the impending ‘But.'

           His voice swelled with pride. “We had a good head-start on it. Hell of a lot of work went into getting the Disciples, the Operators and the Pack to work together. But we got here. ’Bout a year ago, we push in through the front gate, take over Nuka-Town, get these traders under our thumb…”

              ‘Traitors again? What does it take to be a traitor to these people?’ She pondered

              “And then… Well, Colter got lazy. He was content to sit on his ass, never bothered putting in the effort to finish taking over the park. The gangs got restless, and started pissing each other off. It was… is… a real mess.” Gage leveled an assessing gaze on her.  
 

           “What kind of a mess am I walking into here?” She didn’t allow her stony countenance betray her dread at what the answer might be.

             “It was little shit at first: heated tempers, arguments, the occasional shooting. Got worse over time, though. Gangs started staking out as much territory as they could, all being on top of each other like this. Started looking for excuses to turn on each other.” He spread his palms entreatingly, “If something ain’t done soon to settle things down, it’s gonna reach a point there ain’t no coming back from.”

             “I can fix this.” She said confidently, “I can make this work.” She knew for Shaun’s sake, she would have to.

             “Yeah?” Gage asked a bit doubtfully “Man, I sure hope so.”

            There was a brief lull as they finished their drinks, and tossed the bottles into a pool a few stories below. Gage’s bottle splayed filthy water all over a man up to his knees in water searching the scummy water for treasures. He chuckled lightly.  
 

             “Look, I know these gangs. Been workin’ with them or against them for years now. I’ll help you, okay? Walk you through everything.” His tone implying it would be a cake walk. “First thing you gotta do is get the gangs behind you. Without them supporting you, you’re not getting shit done.”

              She cocked her eyebrow at that, the first sign of emotion shed shown since the conversation had began.  
 

              “You don’t have to trust them.” He soothed. ”Hell, you don’t even have to like ‘em. But you need them to respect you enough to follow you.”  
     

              She couldn’t help asking, “Have any advice for how I should go about it?”

              “Yeah, all right… the Disciples like violence. The bloodier the better. Tell ‘em they’ll get plenty of it.”

              ‘Well, that sound terrifying.’ She thought to herself.

               “The Operators are in it mostly for the money. They get promised caps, they’ll listen to you.”

                They sounded like essentially mercenaries to her. She hoped they were the caliber she would need the wrest her wayward son from whoever had him now.

               “The Pack… Hell, I don’t know. They follow whoever they think is the strongest. Show some teeth I guess.”

               She frowned at how vague the last piece of advice was.

               “Look, technically you’re already the new Overboss, right? That’s like, half the work done right there. Just… meet the leaders. Talk with ‘em, flex your muscles a little. Show ‘em you mean business.”  
 

             Here they had arrived at the crux of the matter. “What happens when they’re on my side?”

               “Then we get started on taking over the rest of Nuka-World. But, one step at a time. You in?” he smiled like she had a choice.

               “Okay, let’s do this.” She answered. She would take over the park, then send her armies out to find and retake her son.

               “All right! That’s what I’m talking about. You just need to show ‘em you’re the right woman for the job.” He walked to the elevator platform, and grandly gestured a place beside him.  
 

              She scooped Fuzzbutt up to her chest, and took a spot beside him as he pressed a red button beside him, sending the elevator down. It was a slow but surprisingly smooth ride, down the five or so stories to the ground below.  
 

              “So do you know where you’re heading first?” Gage asked, all set to dole out more advice.

                “Yes, I figure, since the Pack is so animal based, they probably have a vet. I want to get this one checked out right away, so I’ll talk to the Pack leader while I’m there.” She said, looking ahead so as not to catch sight of the frown she was sure he was wearing. She needed him to know that if she was going to be the Overboss, well then she was going to be the Fucking overBoss.  
 

             “What’s the Pack leaders name?” She asked as the strolled across the filth strewn courtyard of the Nuka-Town proper.

               “Mason.” Gage answered tightly.

               Nora smiled, her message had been received. “Then let’s go show this motherfucker how things are going to be.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next three sexy chapter will be meeting the leaders. Now is the time to get in requests. ;)


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Very, very violent. You might want to leave at the break. You were warned.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For Modifier-x. Thanks for hanging in there. And the rest of you who have helped me know this IS worth continuing. Thank you.

Walking through the park, Nora and Gage soon found themselves outside the Bradburton theatre. The Pack had reinforced it walls high with scavenged metal and pallets. They had also added a gate, complete with its own gate keeper.

A scrawny woman stood imposingly by the door. She was practically resplendent in her bright face paint and armor. Her helmet had large horns in the Viking style, with matching bone braces. She had even given herself little clawed toes over her boots. And while she had many large pieces of caged armor, underneath she wore only a pair of short cutoff shorts and a grimy tank top.

As they approached, the gatekeeper called out. “Welcome to the nest boss. We were wondering when you'd make it down here.”

“Well, here I am.” Nora muttered as she opened the gate and stepped through.

The cloying odor of animals and shit nearly cause her to gag. The tight quarters with many bodies, and no air flow making it through, made the rank smell nearly visible. She regretted leaving her gas mask behind, but it didn’t seem like she would be able to get the leaders to see eye to eye with her quite so well without seeing her face. The slightly vomitus smell it had, of course had nothing to do with it.

Looking to her left, she saw a long alleyway between the wall and the old booth fronts. Two dirty rag clothed people hunched over brooms sweeping half heartedly at the crust the floors had become over the centuries. She couldn’t tell at this distance if they were men or women, just that they had matching blinking collars.

Off to her right she could see a large hastily welded together cage with three more of the collared people hunched together in the corner as the only occupants. Though just ahead she could hear the sounds of two animals fighting, the noise echoing between the bleachers of the amphitheater.

Heading down she was horrified to see a wire fence enclosure with a large mole rat fighting a large ghoulified dog, bigger and beefier than Fuzzbutt’s mother. It seemed to be winning, as the mole rat was practically drenched in blood from dozens of bites and cuts. But the dog wasn’t without its own injuries showing in a favored hind leg and missing ear.

As the molerat tore at the dogs shoulder, it let out a yelp, and Fuzzbutt started to run towards the fight barking as fiercely as ten pounds of fury could. Stepping quickly Gage bent down and caught the precocious pup by the scruff of her neck, then shifted her easily under one of his arms. Fuzzbutt didn’t let up with her persistent, if shrill vocal assault, causing a few of the raiders to look their way.

“Look Boss, I’ll take the mutt to the vet while you talk to Mason. He’s not the type to appreciate being put off, and I don’t think she’s gonna help your image right now.” Gage advised.

Nora locked eyes with him. “She’s more important to me than you are. So, you know, keep that in mind.”

Gage just smiled and headed off one of the long corridors the Pack had created, shushing Fuzzbutt gently so she calmed as soon as they were out of sight of the cage match.

She turned and smartly made her way around the cage to the stage overlooking it. The path was littered with debris that had been more or less pushed off the side of the set of stairs on either side of the stage. More of the sharp rusting beams seemed to act more as reinforcements than accessory like the ones she had seen in the Gauntlet.

There was an obvious throne set up atop a short but tall set of stone steps, with a tall ginger man languishing in it. She recognized him as the boss that had seemed less than pleased with her ascension. He was hard to forget with the colorful face paint and giant bone necklace he was sporting. If not for the ridiculous furry pants he wore, she would have found him terribly intimidating. But the pants looked as if they had skinned an animal mascot for them.

She drew herself short at the edge of the stage, as she saw she wasn’t the first to approach the gang leader. She kept a respectful distance, but could still overhear the exchange.

The man seemed to be another member of the Pack as he was similarly painted and had some odd stuffed souvenir animals hanging from his belt as accessories.

Mason glanced at the supplicant before sighing as though he was terribly bored, and went back to watching the fight as the underling asked. “Can’t you talk to Mags or something? You said we ain’t allowed to kill any of ‘em. So…”

She found the urge to laugh at his pants and attire dissolve as he practically purred back to the man, his voice rich, baritone, and underlying with threat. “Tell me. Did you have to wait in a long line to see me?”

The supplicant started to shrink in on himself as he answered. “No, I walked right up here.”

Finally catching sight of her, Mason swung his feet down the floor as sitting proud and straight. “Exactly. Most can handle their shit, without bothering me about it.” He leaned forward and cocked his head to the side. “Do you need help finding your place here?”

“No. No! I can handle it.” Came the tremulous response, the man seemed nearly a foot shorter than when she had come on stage.

Driving the point home Mason leaned back in his throne, “There’s plenty of collars in the kennels if you can’t.” He flicked his fingers in dismissal at the man, forgetting him already as the raucous fight in the cage before him continued on.

The horrible screeching, and shrill yips of pain seemed to crawl up Nora’s spine like rusty fingernails, but she couldn’t allow herself to be distracted. Or worse appear soft. So, doing her best to block out the din, she strode up to Mason with a self assured gait. Planting herself directly between him and the fight, she adopted a stance she had seen Nate assume on the parade square on more than one occasion.

‘Standing at ease.’ she thought, feeling anything but. His throne was still several small stone steps above her, but being slightly taller than average, found herself eye level with his seated gaze.

“Now that I get a closer look at you..” He began, studying her, giving the distinct impression the shapelessness of her clothes were keeping no secrets from him. He dragged his eyes back to hers, after lingering on her new scar. “Not sure I buy this new Overboss thing.”

This was it, she either took control, or watch it all slip away. “As long as you care about yourself, you’ll do what I tell you.” She was relieved to hear how sure she sounded, since at best she had a 10 pound pup for back up.

He sat forward rolling his shoulders as he did, showing just how much muscle he had packed on. That seemed quite the feat here, where most people looked half starved.

“Ha!” He laughed, the smile making it to his cerulean blue eyes. “You might make it out of here alive after all.”

She wasn’t sure if that was comforting as he continued on.

“Name’s Mason. I’m the Pack’s alpha.” He growled with no small amount of pride. “This here’s our side of town.” He smile became decidedly feral. “You might be Overboss- for now. But I’m the boss of the Pack. And it’s going to stay that way. Long as you don’t go forgetting that, were going to be fine.”

She caught the nuance to his threat. She might have the ability to change more than she thought. He was clearly worried that she might loosen his stranglehold as Alpha. Watching as he drew his fingers through his ginger hair, she smiled back. Or at least showed her teeth to him.

“Let’s work together, Mason.” It wasn’t like she had an idea of who would be better suited to her needs. Yet. “I’m not interested in ruining your gig.”

“If that ain’t a lie, then things might end up alright between us.” He said through narrowed eyes, while licking his top teeth.

He sat back casually as he abruptly changed the subject. “Look it ain’t like anyone’s broke up about Colter. Just figured on his replacement being… Well different. But Gage says you’re the boss now. So, you’re the boss.”

Not forgetting his earlier comment on how she was in charge for now, but the insulation she might not be soon, had her arching her brow. She had to ask, “You don’t want to be Overboss?”

He seemed a bit surprised, but answered seemingly truthfully. “If I thought the other gangs would go along, yeah. I’d run this place in a heartbeat. Might have to – If you turn out to be a turd. At least it ain’t Mags Black or that freak Nisha. Besides, you can’t possibly be worse than Colter.”

Although this man was setting off every danger alarm she had, she knew he had the potential to be a very powerful ally. She wasn’t ready to tell any of these raiders about Shaun yet, but… “I have big plans for this place, you’ll see.”

He leaned uncomfortably close to her face. She was able to not flinch or pull away only through great effort. Hygiene seemed to be coming in low on the list of priorities these days.

“Maybe you’re the real deal. But we though Colter was the real deal, too. And he’s laying in a pool of his own blood.”

‘Did you forget who put him there?’ She wondered as he finally leaned back out of her space.

“Don’t get me wrong. Colter was definitely Overboss.” He said respectfully, “Not a man to mess with. And things were good in the beginning. Real good.”

His voice became disgusted, “But that was a year ago. Then Colter went soft. Wanted to ‘take stock in what we had achieved.”

They had arrived to the crux of the matter. What did he want from her? “I’m listening.” She prompted stonily.

“Sure, this place beats living in the shit holes we had out there. But it ain’t the palace of caps we signed up for. Ain’t none of us happy – Not even the Disciples. And they’re normally a chipper bunch so long as they’re drenched in blood. Things were going to Hell fast, but Gage put the brakes on that. Got us together and promised he’d found someone to deal with Colter.”

This seemed to good an opportunity to waste to find out more about her new second in command. One that had admittedly turned on his last boss.

“So, what’s the real story between Gage and Colter?” She asked nonchalantly.

Glancing around to make sure there was no one in earshot, he defensively answered. “Hey, I only know what I’ve heard. Story is that Gage talked Colter into being Overboss.” He smiled. “And he got you in here, didn’t he? Maybe he likes people owing him. Maybe it lets him get things done without getting dirt on his hands. After Colter went soft, Gage got us behind closed doors, and promised us he’d get someone to off Colter.” He bowed his head mockingly, “And you did just that. Might have been the whole point of the Gauntlet all along”

“You can trust me,” she assured him, “I’ll be a good leader.”

He snorted. “No offense, but you just got here. We’ll see what you can do.”

At that moment the mole rat screamed its last to the clapping and jeering of the assembled raiders. Mason clapped along, then seemed bored with their conversation. He impatiently asked, “look, let’s cut to the chase. You going to do right by the Pack?”

Knowing favoritism was tantamount to suicide at this point, she answered in a neutral tone. “I intend to treat all the gangs equally.”

He sneered. “Ain’t no two things in this world that’s truly equal, boss. Everything has its place. One gang is going to end up on top, and one on the bottom.” He shrugged. “It’s a simple the law of nature.”

She started to turn away, when he gently brushed the back of her arm to turn her back.

“One last thing before I let you go.” He gestured around his domain. “There’s always work around here keeping the zoo in order. If you’re ever able to lend a… “ he paused as his stare made its rounds again suggestively over her body. “...hand. Drop by. Loyalty’s a two way street.”

Using immense effort to keep the disgust from her face, she nodded and headed off the stage in search of Fuzzbutt and Gage.

~♤~

Watching the new boss waltz off his stage, Mason stood, adjusting his throbbing erection more comfortably in his furry pants. He smirked at the retreating curve of the bitch’s ass barely contained in the dark khaki military attire. “I'm gonna eat her alive.” He growled.

“Hey Alpha,” called one of his grunts, huffing as he pulled the still bleeding corpse of the mole rat out of the fighting pit. “who did ‘ya want us to chuck in next?”

“Well, Sally ain’t had exercise in a week, so her and… Fuck, I don’t know, bring up the new slaves.”

“Sally?” the lackey asked stupidly.

“The giant fucking ghourilla.” Mason barked.

Mason rolled his eyes. Then his gaze was caught by the Overboss meeting up with Gage. He was still carrying the sickly pup she had hauled along everywhere with her. She took the mutt, gestured for a bit and headed towards the front door allowing for one last glance over her shoulder at him.

He grinned as only an apex predator could and growled low in his throat as their eyes met. He chuckled at the apprehension in her eyes he could make out even at this distance. He sat back on his throne as she made her way through the gate, her long braid catching the last of the sunlight as she left.

Leaning back, he slid his hand down the front of his pants, to firmly grip his cock. “Where are those fucking slaves?” he bellowed.

“Here they are.” A pack member with a nasty looking barbed baseball bat called out, as he guided the slaves onto the stage before his master. He was closely covered in wrappings, probably due to losing a few knife fights that were so common. He bulked over the trio by at least a foot and had the muscle to match.

The trio contained two females, an obvious mother and daughter pair, and a man who looked to be the daughters boyfriend. They clutched at each other for support as the Pack member snarled, “Kneel scum!”

Still stroking his meat in his pants, he faced the three dirty faces before him. “So, who’s it gonna be? Who’s goin’ in the pit?”

The young man jerked forward and spat at Mason, and was quickly tackled by one of Masons favorite dogs Jake. It started mauling at the slaves leg, needing to be whacked a few times with a bat before finally slinking off to the side of the stage.

Mason smiled, “And we have a winner.” He nodded to the grunt, signaling him to throw the slave into the pit. He turned to the two remaining women, neither of them were too hard on the eyes, so he presented them with an option.

“Here’s the deal, your friend there is about to go head to head with miss Sally.” He pointed over to where three of his grunts were trying, and mostly failing, to bring the hulking ghourilla out of her cage down to the fighting pit. “Normally that would be… fair. Well enough we can bet on something. Wounds she can make, minutes he can last. Ya know, that sort of thing. But since Jake tore up his leg pretty good… well it might not be ‘fair’ enough to be entertaining.” He caught the eye of the younger woman. “So, how entertaining can you… ladies… be?”

He saw the understanding light in her eyes. She sat back on her heels, looking down, obviously coming to a decision. He took the time to look her over. She was a bit overweight, but not unattractively so, as it gave her an impressive bust, showing throw the rags her clothes had been reduced to. With medium length brown hair and brown eyes, she should have looked plain, but under the dirt, she looked pretty in her own way. He would have to guessed her age to be somewhere in her early twenties. If he had to describe her in a word, it would be have to be… soft.

The mother however had a much harder physique, angled and thin. Her tanned skin was worn, but telling of her once beauty, framed by a short haircut with bangs diagonally across her face. Her age must have been in her forties, but it was hard to tell with all the filth and the seeming perpetual sneer on her face. The word for her would have to be sharp.

His hard on had already picked a favorite in the boss, so he didn’t care which of these two he dumped a load in.

The daughter had made her choice. “If I’m good enough… to you, will you let…” she paused as she realized the futility in asking for freedom. “Will you be kind to us?”

“NO!” shrieked the boyfriend from the pit, “Don’t you let him touch you! I’ll save us! I will!”

Mason grinned as the pain from the useless pleas ripped through her. “Well, let’s see it then.”

The mother tried to pull her daughter to her chest. “Honey, no. It doesn’t matter what you do for him. It never matters.”

“Jessica, please! Don’t do this!” Screamed the young man as he nervously watched as the ghourilla was finally coaxed from her cage.

Pushing her mother aside, she cried out, “I’m going to do what it takes to survive! So Fuck you!” and with that, she began to methodically, if tearfully, remove her clothes. Within seconds she was kneeling between his legs in only her panties, trembling in fear but gripping her fists in resolve.

Mason smiled at the whole drama unfolding, and rewarded the girls decision by pulling his member from his plush pants. With his free hand he cupped her chin bringing her eye to meet his. “Start by swallowing this,” he tapped her cheek none too gently with his cock, “And I’ll consider it.”

Seeing the rage in the mother’s eyes, he casually pulled out his custom pipe pistol and aimed it at her head. “I’m thinkin', so be smart and just sit there.”

The girl had begun to suck and lick at his dick, hampered somewhat be the tears leaking down her face, and the snot dripping from her nose.

Seeing this, the boyfriend raged against chainlink fence, screaming in despair as the ghourilla was finally wrangled into the cage with him. “Jessica! Baby! Don’t do this!”

Mason called to the bat wielding lackey, while motioning at the still glaring mother. “Turn her to the fight, I don’t want her to miss a thing.”

As the lackey roughly grabbed the mother by the neck, and swung her roughly around, she began to finally break down as she watched the ghourilla size the boy up. She shrieked, “At least give him a fucking weapon you animals!”

The boyfriend squatted down trying to avoid the ghourilla’s notice. He succeeded in as much that Sally was approaching slowly and as cautiously two hundred pounds of mutated muscle could manage.

By now Mason had grown tired of the pathetic attempts of sensuality the whore was trying on his cock. He gripped the a fist full of her hair on the back of her head and wrenched back painfully. He set his pistol of the arm of the throne, and shoved his three middle fingers into her mouth wriggling them into her throat.

“This is where I want my cock, I’m not like your boyfriend down there, and I’m running outta patience.” And with that he shoved her face once more down onto his member.

He had to give the girl credit, it took her only two gagging tries, each failure rewarded with a sharp slap to her face, to finally slid him into her throat. He reached with his other hand to the back of her head and began to thrust roughly in her face.

Her body gagged, and tried to vomit, but as they hadn’t been fed or watered in a few days, nothing came up, so he relished the spasms. He kept an eye on the fighting pit as the mother began to sob loudly.

By now Sally had reached the young man. She reached out to his bleeding leg and pulled it out from under him.

“Jeremy!” was all the mother was able to yell out before, at Masons nod, the lackey knocked her in the back of the head with his bat handle.

She fell to the floor stunned, and her daughter soon followed as Mason cast her off leaving her gasping for air. “Turn over bitch.” He commanded the daughter, as his lackey started pulling down the pants on the stunned mother.

Tearfully, she obeyed, pulling down her panties and angling her cunt towards him. “Ha!” he laughed. “Bitch you ain’t good enough to breed.” And ruthlessly thrust into her anus.

Her screams were quickly intertwined with Jeremy’s, as Sally had picked him up by his wounded leg and took a bite from his calf removing a large piece. He swung up to try and beat at Sally’s face trying to loosen her hold on him. She responded by casually back handing him, causing him to rock back limp once more. Sally then gripped his leg in both hands.

Knowing what this usually meant, Mason gripped the hair on the back of the girls her and pulled her up so she couldn’t miss the sight. He motioned to his lackey. In response he pulled the mother chin up with his barbed bat so she could fully see the pit.

Smiling at the dozens of small blood trails leaking down the mother’s throat from the barbed wired on the bat, he shook the daughters head with one hand while gripping her hip forcefully in the other.

“Make sure your watchin’ slut!” he panted as he increased his pace.

She cried mournfully as she witnessed the ghourilla bent her boyfriends leg, breaking it off at the knee by bending it the wrong way until his toes reached his hips. She then wrenched it free of his body, tossing him aside, and beginning to feed on the severed limb. He rolled painfully to the side of the pit spewing blood everywhere to the cheers and boos and the surrounding raiders.

He had unfortunately come out of his stupor and made a horrific gurgling moan, while gripping dizzily at his missing leg. The smell of blood combined with the spectacle sent an erotic shiver up Masons spine. Spying one of his lieutenants standing respectfully to the side of the stage, he groaned, as his orgasm exploded out of him as he watched the young mans lifeblood leak out onto the thirsty dirt floor of the pit.

He released the daughters hair, but kept a hand on her hips. He wasn’t ready to pull out. She cried and hiccupped into the floor boards as the sound of her mother’s continued rape filled her ears. The wet thrusting sounds punctuated but moans that sounded like the blow to the head might have been more life threatening then it had originally been meant to be.

But it was only for a bit longer as the lackey also soon finished allowing the mother to lay prone on the splintered stage.

Mason motioned to the lieutenant, “What is it?”

The tall black man stopped forward and grinned. He knelt before his alpha as required, but despite the smile on his face, his muscles rippled in objection beneath his stained Nuka t-shirt. “Raid on that settlement went off without a hitch. We ain’t lost no guys, AND we got eight new slaves.” He smirked at his alpha appraising the girl currently impaled on his cock. “Better looking than these ones too.”

Mason shoved off the girl, grinding her face into the stage as he stood, and backed onto his throne.

He picked up his pipe pistol, as his bat wielding lackey shoved himself off the mother and retreated off the stage. Taking a lazy aim he fired a round through the drooling woman’s eyes.

“Wait!” the girl flipped onto her back frantically begging. “You said… I did…. WHY!?”

Ignoring her noise, he turned to his lieutenant. “Toss her to Sally too. That BOY, he died to quick. It was just sad.” He chuckled.

“Noo!” screamed Jessica. She tried to stand but had been damaged to badly for sudden movement as the large pack member hoisted her over his shoulder and easily strolled to the side of the stage. Lifting her in both hands, he grunted and tossed her over the barbed wire surrounding the top of the cage to come to a rolling stop in front of Sally.

Humming to a tempo of the girls screams, Mason cheerfully wiped off his drained member. “Use the old hag to feed the dogs, and prep the slaves. This new boss. She’s given me… ideas.” He ordered his second. Heading off stage he went off to find something to eat. Murder, torture, and rape sure could give one an appetite.

His second nodded and set to the tasks with a small grin. He knew what that gleam in his bosses eye meant. Blood, pain, and sex were in the near future, for all. In horribly delicious amounts.

Maybe he would follow this alpha a bit longer.

Maybe.


	16. A note from the Author

Hello my lovely readers. Rejoice! it is time to let your freak flag fly! As Nora is going to Nuka-World, we have an opportunity. I am taking requests on any acts you would like to see, or any taboo things that would be interesting to see happen.  
Here's the rules,  
No kids.  
No non-sentient animals. (I could do ferals if asked.)  
aaaannnndddddd thats about it.  
So comment to this chapter what you would like to see, and i will do my best to accomodate.  
Please note all comments will not be viewable unless you specify that you would like it to be visible to other readers, so all requests will be between you and I. ;P

**Author's Note:**

> I live on comments.


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